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OUR exijedition, on the afternoon of the 10th 
of June, left the hill back of the apostolic 
capital of Minnesota, wliere the tents had been 
pitched and the messes made up the night before. 



^^y»^tC^ 



The scene had been one of great confusion iire- 
vious to loading the carts and jmcking the mules 
—these the last sad offices before burying our- 
selves in the prairies of the Northwest out of 
sight of civilization. Crowds of citizens from 
St. Paul and vicinity were present during the 
ceremony. All about the camp-ground were 
scattereiLdur provisions, sacks of iiour and sugar 



c//// 



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CASCADE NEAR BT. PACIi. 

and beans, ban-els of pork and bags of dried beef, 
bags of dried apples and sacks of coffee, canis- 
ters of tea and kegs of powder, bags of shot and 
I'hunks of lead, rifles, shot-guns, and pistols, 
Iilankets — blue, red, white, and green ; fishing- 
rods, pack-saddles, cart-harness, tents and tent- 
poles, tin kettles, iron saucepans, tin plates, car- 
|)et-bags, Talises, soap-boxes, axes, and buffiilo- 
robes, butcher-knives and spy-glasses, and a liun- 
dred things besides — some useful and some use- 
less — relics of ciyilization which now lie scattered 
along the valley of the Red River of the North 
and the prairies of the Saskatchewan, one by one 
thrown away as their owners drew the line be- 
tween luxuries and necessities, in passing from 
citizens to nomads. 

At length the carts were loaded, horses har- 
nessed, mules packed, and horsemen mounted. 
"The Colonel" led the train, driving a light sulky 
(■arrying the odometer and other scientific in- 
struments. Balky horses were spurred up, re- 
fractory mules flogged, and amidst hundreds of 
•'Good-byes," "Write me from Frazer River," 
"My compliments to the Saskatchewan," "Send 
back the biggest nuggets you find," "Let me 
give you a pass over the Rocky Mountains," one 
after another wheeled into line, and the expedi- 



tion was fairly started on its' 
long journey. 

Three-fourths of our twenty 
were bound to Frazer River to 
dig for gold ; the rest were in 
search of treasures of anoth- 
er sort — health, knowledge, a 
summer's recreation, science, 
personal inspection of the 
Northwestern areas and the . 
reat rivers by which they are 
linked to our own Northwest- 
ern States. 

We outfitted at St. Paul, 
and spent a fortnight of fine 
unimcr weatlier, when we 
ought to have been traveling, 
in making our purchases, be- 
c,inning witli horses. [Eulo- 
gy of Western horse-jockeys is 
Iiere omitted for want of room, 
riie sentiments of the writer 
^\ ill be intelligibly conveyed by 
the picture on the next page, 
containing portraits of animals 
tftered for our purchase by 
members of that virtuous and 
enlightened profession.] 

My friend Joseph bought a 
mare whom he conceived to be 
profoundly penetrated with a 
grave consciousness of the part 
she was performing in opening 
an international higliway across 
the continent. " Observe," 
said he, " the pensile head, 
the meditative, lacklustre eye, 
the impressive solemnity of her 
slowly measured tread. See 
how she restrains the natural levity of her dis- 
position, and represses that exuberance of an- 
imal spirits which one might expect from a horse 
in the very blush and dew of equine adolescence 
— for the man I liought her of s^\'ore she was only 
six years old. Let her be called Lady Mary." 
For my own part, I bought a horse of Indian 
origin and aboriginal habits*-lazy, tough, balky, 
jocose, sagacious, and of a conservative habit — 
afterward called "Dan Rice." Together we 
bought a mule to draw our kit and cargo in a 
cart of the Red River pattern. Each of us had 
an India-rubber blanket, two pair of heavy woolen 
blankets, arms and ammunition, fishing-tackle, be- 
sides the cooking utensils, compass, hammer and 
nails, pail, water-keg, axe, scj-the, shovel, rope, 
string, and jack-knife, which we owned in com- 
mon. For wearing apparel the best average was : 
a soft felt hat, three or four blue flannel shirts, 
with three or four pockets in each. A full snit 
of Canada blue or stout doeskin, with an extra 
pair of trowsers. One pair of duck cloth over- 
alls. Boots or higli shoes, with projecting soles 
to keep the prairie-grass from cutting through 
the uppers. 

Whoever goes to Frazer River hereafter by the 
northern overland route will please listen to two 



7-2- 



* 



"^^f^ %f 







UORBE-JOCKETTNG. 



items of advice, or skip to the nest paragraph. 
Item first — -the same which Punch gave to a 
young couple about marrying — " Don't !" But 
if he insists upon going — item second — let him 
not travel five hundred miles north with loaded 
carts before beginning on his half-continent of 
westing. Messrs. Buvbank and Blakely, of St. 
Paul, have had a line of stages this summer from 
that city to the head of narigation on the Red 
River of the North; and the steamboat Anson 
Northiip, owned by them in shares with the Hud- 
son's Bay Company, now connects that terminus 
with the Selkirk Settlement. Let the emigrant 
outfit at St. Paul, send his provisions to Fort Gar- 
ry by the route named, and there buy carts and 
fresh horses and make an early start. 

It was a motley crowd. There was the man 
of monstrous egotism, who passed his life in the 
contemplation and exposition of bis own achieve- 
ments and Wrtues, and men of no virtue at all ; 
the enthusiast, and the man who ridicided all 
anthusiasm ; the man who believed every thing, 
»nd the man who believed notliing ; men of good 
principle, 'men of b.ad principle, and men of no 
principle; scholars and ignoramuses; industri- 
ous men and lazy men ; sick men, who could be 
floored with a rush, and well men that a bull 
would hesitate before trying to butt over ; water 
drinkers and whisky drinkers; men that were 
boys, and boys that were men ; Nova Scotians 
and Indian half-breeds, Scotchmen and Canadi- 
ans, English, American, and Irish ; and but 
three tents-fnl in all. 

There were with us two doctors, to look after 
our healths, and an accomplished scientific gen- 
tleman, a geologist and botanist, who afterward 



descended the Assiuiboine River from Fort EUice, 
in a canoe, with only a single Indian guide, as- 
certaining the n.avigability of the stream in the 
spring of the year to small boats, and in neai'ly 
all seasons to batteaux— one of the few result's 
accomplished by the expedition. 

Oiu- first day's journey was a very short one. 
Horses and mules had to be weaned from the 
quotidian oats of civilization, and taught to rec- 
oncile themselves to grass and water. The fa- 
tigues of the journey had to be begun adaf/!o, 
and then crescendo. A s/or:an(!o movement at 
the start wonld have knocked them up in a week. 
We, too, had to be weaned. We found this 
out at the first camping-ground. Instead of 
ringing for coals and ordering a chop, we had to 
cliop our wood and build our fires and fry our 
own pork. The streams, which are the Crotons 
and Cochitnates of the prairies, had to make con- 
nection with our temporary bouses by wooden 
pails instead of iron pipes, and we to "leant how 
much easier it is to reach a bell-rope and ttrni a 
foucet than to be hewers of wood and drawers of 
water. 

Riding in the sun and the labor and excite- 
ment of starting had given us the appetites of 
Brobdignagians. Visions of savory messes, 
clouds of fragrant steam, in which Soyer tlie 
immortal seemed enjoying perpetual apotheosis, 
floated through our minds as we pitched the 
tents and drove their stakes, stacked the gims 
and spread our blankets for the night, and then 
waiteil and listened for the call to sup])er. Pres- 
ently it came, and in the one word "Gruh!" 
and grub it was. Tlie tea, virgin as when gath- 
ered in the gardens of the celestials, had impart- 



*aE~ 




BED BIVEB OUIDE. 



ed none of its virtue to the ravishing hot water, 
and the decoction which we poured into our tiii 
cups from the new tin tea-pot desen-ed no better 
name than hot slops. We asked for bread and 
received a stone, or at least something so com- 
pact, solid, and yet springy, that if it could be 
produced in sufficient quantities it might super- 
sede the pavements of New York, with danger 
to horses, profit to the contractor, and .additfon 
to the general filth— the three essentials. Fried 
salt pork was the piece dc resistance. 

These were our bad beginnings, however. We 
had not then got into the region of game. Sub- 
sequently we had bread as light and good as 
could be desired, and banqueted on flcsb, fish, 
and fowl of an infinite variety. Even Delmon- 
ico denies you the pleasure which we had— of 



shooting your own bird, picking, dressing, and 
salting it, and impaling the cadaver upon a sharp 
stick, there to broil over the coals of the camp- 
fire into exquisite yellows and browns. And a 
venison steak with the costliest accompaniments, 
in a fciur-walled restaurant, is not to be ]ireferred 
to a buftalo steak at supper, bought by a four- 
mile chase. Nor did bread and pork" and tea 
comprise all our bill of fare. Some of the no- 
mads whom civilization was sloughing ofli' still 
clung to the fare to which they had been accus- 
tomed; and visitors came, bringing in secret 
pockets mysterious black bottles, containing, if 
all we have heard is true, chalk, marble dust, 
opium, tobacco, henbane, oil of vitriol, copperas, 
alum, strychnine, and other exhilarating bever- 
ages. 




THK nLATELES-S a^UL£. 



isjiges and leuns conrinoaUr pa^ed ns, and 
«n- campJife as Tet lacked the"seclnsion which 
gives it iC5 charm. Some of ns irere eT«i ireai 



loir-cascs of ciTiltxation to the blankets of bartm- 
nans, and ggioall^ fonnd oor irar at smtdovn 

. ^- --^ lo some inn. 

-T«er*ewh„esbe«s and linen pa- 1 StiH. Jong this m«*d tbo,.:ngh&Te. anO 

wiih these dilotion? 
of campJife, »© ice: 
■iriih some sharp con- 
feasts. 3It sietch- 
hook contains, vj<m 
consecntiTe psges, a 
picmre of the Astor- 
like •• Feller Honi¥." 
at a. Pad. who* 
I slept one nicfct, 
and the "Tiareier's 
Hoine-~ where I ask- 
ed for '• someihin"' to 
eat" on the nest ^t. 
Otir road passed 
OTer rwo iribntaries 
of the Mississipfa — 
Eli Kirer and Rnm 
Ki^r. g^ng fresh- 
ets had carried awav 
their bridges, and we 
cncBsed hr means of 
temporary rope fer' 
ries. Oct Rem Riv- 
er ferry, near Ancia. 
we were carried free- 
Enterprising citixezj? 
reasoned with the 
~ - " "le boat 
riotjcallr 
-V i 
.-hi 



cooditioB a5 
the pioneer? 

great Xorrbwest Ex- 
ploring Espeditjon. 
That hodr. when it 
had crossed, origan- 




"— iT cvEj tm xi\:ix. 




ONE or orK DOcroES. 

ized itself into a convention and passed the fol- 
lowing resolutions : 

"ITAerwi^ by the kindness of the citizens of Anoka vre 
have been ferried over Rum River free, 

** Resoh-ftl^ That we tender them our heartfelt thanks : 

" Resolv€d^ Tliat we are deeplv sensible of the able and 
3killful manner in which the ferrjiuan managed his pole, 
and his assistant the rudder, in the trying transit of Rum 
River; 

" Besolved^ That we are devontly gratefnl that the rope 
did not break and leave 03 tc the mercy of winds and 
waves ; 

" i?f5oriYd, That we cordially unite in recommending 
to Charon, the proprietor of the Styx ferry-boat, to re- 
frain frwm demanding the usual two oboli from the citi- 
zens of Anok -. and the ferryman of Rum River." 

These resolutions were adopted nem. con. The 
chairman was about to put the motion to adjourn 
to a quarter where the ram was not so liberally 
diluted as in the stream just crossed, when the 
gentleman who had offered the resolutions stepped 
on top of a pile of flour-sacks in his cart and ex- 
claimed, 

" Mr. Chairman, before we adjourn allow me 
to make a few brief remarks on a subject in which 
we are all deeply interested. Xeed I say that I 
siUiide to the great Northwest Exploring Expe- 
dition ?" [Hear ! hear ! Go on ! go on ! Three 
cheers for the Saskatchewan .'] 

The exigencies of space compel the omission 
of the speaker's apology for a want of prepara- 
tion for the occasion and his brilliant exordium. 
The following extracts are taken from the man- 



uscript which he drew from his pock- 
et a few moments later. 1 have en- 
deavored to relieve the dryness of 
his discourse by interpolating a few 
sketches of the members of our par- 
ty, as they appeared at various points . 
of the journey. 

"The discovery of gold in Frazer 
Kiver and its tributaries depopulated 
many of the small towns of Califor- 
nia in a few short weeks. Tracts of 
land, once thickly settled and well 
tilled, were emptied of inhabitants 
and left as free of the plow as they 
were before gold was discovered in 
that El Dorado. Emigrants came 
from the East too, but passed on by 
the Golden Gate and entered the 
Straits of Juan de Fuca on their 
w,ay to the newer and more northern 
El Dorado. Shall we wonder, then, 
that the Californians have said Fra- 
zer Kiver is a humbug? Nay, rath- 
er let us rejoice. Shall any croaker 
say we count our eggs before thev 
are hatched ? Perhaps we do ; but 
it is because the eggs are golden ones, 

and we are sure of our goose 

"But the emigration is already 
sufficient to make the question of 
routes all important. Some may 
like to go around the Horn, but not 
a Western man ; that is not his way 
of treating horns. WTio wants to 
be huddled like cattle between the 
decks of a rickety old steamer for weeks and 
months? ArVho wants to go from London to 
Paris by the way of Jericho? The best gold 
fields are in the head waters of Frazer River, 
close to the Rocky Mountains, just over the way. 

We take the short cut 

"To use the words of a distinguished writer: 
' Various causes have been approaching their 
crisis of consequence with a remarkably synchro- 
nous movement.' The license of the Hudson 
Bay Company has just expired. The land which 
they have shut out the world from is open to 
capital and labor. British Columbia has been 
organized. People are hearing of the northward 
deflection of the isothermals west of the great 
lakes. Bulwer's prophecy, of a cordon of fi-ee 
States all along our nonhem boundan-, may yet 
be realized. Ten ye.ars ago who knew that 
northwest of Chicago lies an inhabitable area 
bigger than the whole United States east of the 
Mississippi, included between the same lines of 
latitude which box the great grain-growing dis- 
tricts of Central Europe? Japan is opening, and 
the Amoor gajies to receive her coming thousands. 
Oregon and Washington Territories are swelling 
into magnificence, and the eyes of wide-awake 
philosophers already see in the Northern Pacific 

the Mediterranean of the future 

" And what a magnificent river system is that 
of the Northwestern areas — a system by itself! 
Think me not stupid because I am statistical. 



The Red River of the North hooks its head wa- 
ters in among the head waters of the Mississippi. 
Then it sends its waters lumdreds of miles north 
to Lake Winnipeg, tlie centre of the system. 
That lalce is two liundred miles long, navigjible 
for any class of vessels. Its nuiin tributaiy is 
the Saskatchewan [cheers], navigable to tlic very 
shadows of the Rocky Mountains. Of this coun- 
try, big enongli to make half a dozen first-class 
States, Red River is tlie syjihon, and Minnesota 
is the reservoir that its wealth will always flow 
into. Blinnesota, too, gentlemen, as my friend 
Lieutenant JIaury says, is the centre of the 
Northern thermal band — the temperate zone, the 
zone of commerce, nu^nufactures, industrial ac- 
tivity, and the wealth and power of the globe. 
England, France, Russia, Germany, the New 
England, Middle, and Northwestern States lie 
in it ; the whole valley of the St. Lawrence and 
the great basin of the Saskatchewan lie in it. 
The climatic associations of this belt, upon the 
eastern side of the basin of the great lakes, have 
formed the elements of the popular delusions re- 
garding the climate of the region to the west and 
northwest of us. But how absurd is the deduc- 
tion ! The same argument proves that the vine- 
clad hills of France are no better than the banks 
of Newfoundland, and Central Europe as bleak 
and cold as our stormy Labrador. Science and 
observation tell us that the western coasts of 
continents are warmer than the eastern in the 
I same latitude, and the northwestern areas of our 
continent will yet be settled with a poindation 
such as it deserves." 

The orator, dismounting from his throne, was 
saluted with three cheers. The wit of the i)arty 



called for " Hail Columbia" from the thermal 
band, and the twenty mounted their horses and 
carts and drove on. 

The day's jjrogramme soon settled down into 
this routine : The morning watch called the 
cooks of the three messes at sunrise, and the 
cooks called tlicir messes half an hour later. 
After ablutions, which were performed in proxi- 
mate tin basins or distant brooks, breakfost wa,- 
laid upon the gronnd and eaten. The interval, 
till seven or eight o'clock, was generally given to 
miscellaneous matters, hm-ses needing to be shod, 
liarness to be mended, tents to be struck, jour- 
nals to be written up, etc. At half past seven 
the animals which had been nnpieketed at sun- 
rise by the morning watch were brought up, 
harnessed and saddled, and at about eight tlie 
expedition started on its day's journey. We 
rested an hour or half-hour at noon, and went 
into camp at four. The variations upon this 
])lan became numerous as we journeyed on. 
Sometimes a deep stream was to be crossed, 
wliich cccu]]ied half the day, during which the 
horses rested, and could, therefore, travel later. 
Sometimes the greater part of a day's journey 
was through marshes, or the road was bad and 
full of sloughs, which wearied the horses : in this 
case we went into cam]) earlier. But the prin- j 
ci]>al cause of variation came to be the nearness 
of wood and water. These words gi-adnally 
changed their original signification into a much 
broader one, in our minds. Wood once meant 
the stuft' floors and doors and desks are made 
of, and water was merely one of a great variety 
of fluids. Now wood and water became essen- 
tials to us. We must have them or go supper- 




OrK MATTEALIST BTUDTING GBAS8E8 







MY FIEST WATcn. 



less to bed, and start breakfastless in the morn- 
ing. They stood instead of a hundred thing, 
and were, to use the phrase of a philosopher; 
the fundamental data of life. By them we lired 
and moved, and had our being. 

On coming to the camp-ground the horses 
were at once unsaddled and the mules unhar- 
nessed all watered and turned out to graze till 
twLbght, when they were picketed for the night 
I he tents were pitched, wood cut, and water 
brought for the cooks, who set forth their tins 
built the fires, and proceeded to business. After 
supper the watch, who was on duty from sunset 
tiU midnight, built smudges for the animals, saw 
they were properly picketed, and began his round. 



The blankets were spread in the tents, the tents 
smudged or mosquito nets hung, and at dark 
nearly all were asleep. A few lingered around 
the camp-fire telling stories of home, singing 
songs and choruses, and smoking their pipes ■ 
but soon they, too, joined the sleepers. 

My first watch happened to fall while we were 
camped on the east bank of the Mssissippi. It 
was the morning watch, from midnight to sun- 
rise. A cool wind, inexpressibly refreshing after 
the heat of the day, blew the blanket from mv 
shoulders as I stepped out of the tent at the call of 
the first watch. Over the whole sky clouds v,ere 
flying to the south, in thick billows; through the 
upper air, and in whiter flecks of foam below 



In the west tlie full moon was going down, now 
completely liiddcn from the sight, and now burst- 
ing through the rifts wiih a sudden light. In 
these moments the white tents gleamed, and the 
thick darkness which hung over the river, the 
forests of trees upon its western bank, and upon 
the islands between, suddenly passed awav, re- 
vealing their sharp outline against the sky, the 
rounded grnccful masses of foliage, broken by 
here and there a giant trunk leafless, the memo- 
rial of some storm and its swift lightning stroke. 
Long, deep shadows stretched across the river al- 
most to the liither shore, and where the moon- 
light shone fair and clear, the rajiid current of 
the river, whose waters the nortli wind seemed 
hurrj-ing on to their southern gulf, was trans- 
formed to bridges of light, and the illusion hard- 
ly passed away until a raft came floating down 
the stream out of the darkness, a single form 
visible upon its TiTinkled surfirce, his hand upon 
the huge paddle guiding its course through the 
windings of the channel as it swayed from shore 
to shore. 

St. Clond, seventy-fivtfmiles north of St. Paul, 
the northern limit of the second stretch of con- 
tinuous navigation on the Mississijjpi, was our 
first station. Six or seven years ago there was 
nothing there but the forest primeval and a 
cabin or two: Now there is a capital hotel, the 
Stearns House, two or three churches, a hospital 
of the Sisters of Jlercy, and houses for a thou- 
sand people. The west bluff of the river, where 
St. Cloud stands, is high and steep, the prairie 
stretching back of it level. From various [joints 
on this bluff the river views are beautiful, espe- 
cially the one looking north to Sauk Rapids, two 
or three miles above. 

The greatest institution, the peculiar one of 
St. Cloud, I have failed to mention — the St. 
Cloud newspaper. Joseph and I called upon its 
editor, the well-known Mrs. Swisshelm, and were 
permitted to see the most northwestern printing 
oflice of the cis-montane States. We found the re- 
puted ogre a large-eyed, lively little woman, with 
a masculine and iraliandsome breadth and height 
of forehead, wearing a ])lain brown Quakerish 
dress, and occupied in sewing together a carpet 
for the principal room in her new house, just 
finishing and adjoining the old one. She was 
very busy, and therefore kept her position on the 
floor and went on with her work, telling us, how- 
ever, that she was glad we came, begging us to 
go on and talk, but launching her bark in the 
current of conversation before we had knocked 
away the shores of otir own. She was absorbent 
and capacious of information, uniting the pro- 
fessional inquisitiveness of the reporter with the 
friendly curiosity of her sex. Her comments 
were shrewd and her talk often witty. Present- 
ly she left her work and took us into the print- 
ing-oflice and sanctum. The latter was a small 
apartment partitioned off from the main room, 
long and narrow. In one comer stood the edi- 
torial desk, with a pile of exchanges surmounted 
by the professional scissors and paste-pot. She 
liad been comiiellcd to use the saiictum as a liv- 



ing room also. At the right stood a table with 
the dishes laid for tea, and close at the left a 
cooking stove loaded with tea-pot, frying-pan. 
and kettles. Every thing appeared in confusion 
in this sanctum ; for it was not large enough te 
swing a cat comfortably in, and yet was crowded 
with the miscellaneous contents of an editorial 
office, a kitchen, and dining-room, and served, 
besides, as the passage-way to the larger roon? 
beyond. In this room were the hand-]iress and 
stands of type, one or two half-madc-up fonns 
and half a dozen galleys rested on the table, 
while the walls were adorned with ])osters an- 
nouncing horse sales, houses to rent, etc. A 
window was broken, and the floorlittered. Lean- 
ing against the form-table in this dingy room, 
the brave woman told us how she had learned to 
set type herself, and then taught boys to ; how she 
made up the forms ; how she had got along with 
a stiff-necked and rebellious people ; how she had 
enjoyed her persecutions and mild martyrdom : 
how she had endured the res anrjitsla doiiii, and. 
like all the rest of us workies, had nearly died in 
getting a living. 

We had a supper that night— not bnt what, in 
the ordinary conditions of the exchequer, most 
of us were sure of three meals a day ; but thif 
was a particular and public supper. For mi 
part, I remember nothing of it except that the 
presiding officer was C. C. Andrews, immor- 
talized in " The Red River Trail," a lawyer 
who is making his mark in the northwest, and 
; that, after his sensible brief speech, somebody pot 
j up and told who built the first wagon in Jlinne- 
sota, and somebody else expressed the opinion 
that the head of navigation on the Mississippi 
I was not St. Paul, nor S'n'anthony, nor St. 
Cloud, but Fort Edmonton on the Saskatche- 
wan. 

On Jlonday, June 20, the ti-ain stnick its fcnt~ 
and left St. Cloud : here beginning its experienccf 
of camp-life with a back-ground. So fiir we had 
been treading the w.arp and woof of civilization— 
now we began to slip off the fringes of its outer- 
most skirts. Our direction was northwest, by the 
valley of Sauk River, through the lake district of 
Middle Minnesota to the head of navigation on 
Red River. Such articles as were needed had 
been added to our outfit, including a boat to crns^ 
streams in, which served for a wagon box on dry 
land. The second day out all our horses anil 
mules ran away before breakf^ist. Half the cam] 
scoured the country in every direction in search foi 
the runaways. They were caught four miles awav. 
making steady tracks for St. Cloud and its pos- 
sible oats, led on in their desertion by two of the 
handsomest, smallest, and meekest-looking mules 
in the train. The road rewarded them with re- 
tributive justice that day. The sloughs were in- 
numerable, and indeed innumerable they con- . 
tinned to he for weeks and weeks, only ajjproach- 
ing the limits of mathematical calculation as w. 
neared Pembina. This may seem strange when 
it is considered that we crossed the divide be- 
tween the tributaries of the Minnesota and Mis. 
sissippi; but, as Joseph said, "with a general 




GETTING OUT OF A SLODGH. 



convexity of outline there was grofit coneaWty 
of detail." The convex " divide," like a rounded 
cheek, had a small-pox of lakes, bogs, ponds, 
sloughs, and morasses. 

To give in detail the particulars of this part 
of our experience would be cruel to writer and 
reader, though it might gain the former a seat 
in the Chinese Paradise of Fuh, where the purg- 
atorial price of admission is to wade for seven 
years in mud up to the chin. So let me give 
the spirit of it all, in a lump. 

The only external indication of some kinds 
of sloughs is a ranker growth of grass, perhaps 
of a dilYerent color, in the low groimd between 
two hills of a rolling prairie. Again, on a level 
prairie, where the road seems the same as that 
you have been traveling dry shod, your horse's 
hoofs splash in wet gi-ass. This goes on, worse 
and worse, till you get nervous and begin to draw 
up your heels out of the water ; and so, jierhaps, 
for a mile, whether in the water or out of it you 
can not tell, horses up to their bellies tnulgiug 
through the water and grass, carts sinking deep- 
er than the hubs, you travel at the rate of one 
mile in 2.40. Very often, however, sloughs 
put on no such plausible appearance, but confess 
themselves at once immistakably bad and ruin- 
ous to horses and carts. 

It is the wagon-master's business to ride ahead 
of the train a few hundred yards, and, on coming 
to a slough, to force bis horse carefully back and 
forth through it till he finds the best place for 
crossing. I have fished for trout in Berkshire 
streams so small that, to an observer a hundred 
yards distant, I must have seemed to be bobbing 
for grasshoppers in a green meadow ; but the ap- 
pearance is not more novel than to see a strong 
horse plunging and pitching in a sea of green 



grass that seems to have as solid a foundation as 
that yonr own hoi-se's hoofs are printing. Some 
sloughs Iiave no better or worse spot. It is mud 
from one side to the other — mud bottomless and 
infinite, and backing up in someinfernal Symmes's 
hole. The foremost cart approaches, and, at the 
first step, the mule sinks to his knees. Some 
mules lie domi at this point ; but most of ours 
were sufficiently well broken to make one more 
spasmodic leap, and, tliough the water or mud 
went no higher than their fetlocks, then and 
there they laid them do\^Ti. This is the moment 
for human intervention, and, on the part of pro- 
fane mule-drivers, for an imprecation of divine 
intervention. The men get off their horses and 
carts, and hurry to the shafts and wheels, tugging 
and straining, while one or two yell at and bela- 
bor the discouraged and mulish mnle. 

The census man w'ould have no difficulty at 
this juncture in ascertaining the persuasion to 
which ])rofane mule-drivers belong, or, at least, 
in which they have been reared. Some of their 
oaths derive their flavor from camp-meeting rem- 
iniscences. Another man excels as a close-com- 
munion swearer, and, after damning his mule, 
superfluously danms the man who would not 
damn him. Other oaths have a tropical luxu- 
riance of iiTcverent verbiage that shows them to 
have been drawn from the grand and reverent 
phrases of the Prayer-book, and still others are 
of that sort which proves their users godless 
^vretches, with whom, for very ignorance, oaths 
stand in the stead of adjectives. 

Belabored by oaths, kicks, whip-lashes, and 
ropes-ends, the mule may rise and plunge and 
lie down, and rise again and plunge, until the 
cart is on solid ground ; but it was generally the 
quicker way to unload the cart or wagon at once, 



or to lighten it until the mule could get through 
easily. If this was inconvenient for any reason, 
a rope was fastened to the axle, and twenty men 
pulling one way would generally succeed in beat- 
ing the planet pulling the other. Our Indian 
ponies got through mud splendidly. Joseph 
was heard to recommend a stud of them for the 
hither side of Banyan's Slough of Despond. 

They were too lazy to be other tlian deliberate 
in getting out of a hole. They put their feet 
down carefully, and, like oxen, waddled along, 
one step or one jump at a time. So they never 
strained themselves asaliigh-spirited horse would, 
and yet were not so mulish as to be willing to 
stay stuck in the mud for centuries, imtil the 
branches of future trees should lift them up for 
fruit like Sir John Mandeville's sheep. 

Three times we crossed tlie tortuous Sauk, 
first by a ferry like the one at Rum Kiver. The 
next time, four days aftenvard, we had to make 
our own ferry. One stout fellow swam across 
vrith. a rope in his teeth, which was tied firmly 
to stout trees opposite each other. Then the 
wagon box was taken off the wheels, two or three 
honrs spent in calking it, launched, and a man 
in the bow, holding on to the rope which sagged 
down to within a yard of the water, by bending 
his body and keeping stiff legs, could head the 
bow up stream against the swift current, and pull 
himself and the load across. A Cree half-breed 
did this canoeing as dexterously from the first as 
if he had spent his life on the river. Horses, 
mules, and oxen were then pushed into the 
stream, one by one, their lariats tied around 
their noses, and held by another person in the 
boat, so as to guide them at once to the ouly 
place where they could get ashore. Finally, the 
empty carts and wagons were floated across, and 
pulled up the bank by a rope around the axle. 

Crossing other streams where the current was 
not swift enough to overturn the carts, and the 
water only deep enough to flow over the boxes, 
we cut saplings, made a floor on top of the frames, 
Uftcd the goods top of that, and crossed without 
unharnessing a mule. 




OLAIAI-STAKE. 




claim-bhantt. 



The conclusion 
of all which is, that 
people on railroad 
cars don't realize 
what they have to 
be thankful for. 

This valley of the 
Sauk up which we 
were traveling is 
one of the garden 
spots of Minnesota. 
The new settlers of 
tile last two or three 
years have many of 
them taken that 
direction. Claim- 
stakes and claim- 
shanties speck the 
road from one end 
of the river to the 
other. Some of the 
claim-shanties" were built in good faith, had 
been lived in, and land was tilled around them. 
Not a few, however, were of the other sort, built 
to keep the letter of the law ; four walls merely, 
no windows, door, or roof. We often foimd it 
convenient to camp near these edifices, and saved 
ourselves the trouble of going half a mile for 
wood when we found it cut so near at hand. 

A terrific thunder-storm came on one after- 
noon in this Sauk valley to which the average 
thunder-storms of lat. 40° 42' long. 74° 41' are 
two-penny and theatrical. We were drenched, 
of course, with the lowest cloudful, in a moment ; 
but the thunder was so near, prolonged, and 
hurtling, that it was enough to make a brave 
man sliiver to remember that his trowsers had a 
steel buckle. All day and all night the tempest 
continued, rain pouring, lightning flashing ronnd 
the whole circuit of the heavens, and the thun- 
der unintermitted. But the next morning rose 
as clear-skied as if the preceding had been a 
June day of old tradition, and not written down 
iu the calendar of the battle-mouth as the anni- 
versary of Montebello. 

Our last day's travel in syl- 
^ van Sauk Valley took us to Osak- 

^^ is Lake. Here we camped for 

Sunday, in an opening in a fine 
forest which surrounded the lake. 
Sund.ay was a perfect day. With 
patient sight one might trace here 
and there the graceful scarf-like 
shadowy white of the highest and 
rarest clouds against the pure 
blue. No lower or coarser forms 
were visible any where from hori- 
zon to horizon, and even these 
would sweep into such evanes- 
cent folds, and ripjile away into 
such ethereal faincness, that the 
eye passed them and looked 
through the blue ether itself. To 
breathe the pure air was indeed 
an inspiration. The wind came 
fresh and clear over the lake. 



I 



There it lies, surronnded by forests on every 
side, -nith only here and there vistas of open 
prairie. From the level of the roots of tlie 
nearest trees, and from tlie shadows tliat rest 
among their huge trunks, the shining beach 
slopes down, its white sand tlie floor where the 
waves endlessly run up, visible far out and then 
fused with the surface blue. I gave myself a 
baptism in this beautiful cold lake, and then 
finding an old gnarled oak whose spreading 
limbs made a comfortable couch overlooking 
the water, whiled the still hours away till the 
shadows of the distant trees lengthened over the 
lake and touched the hither shore. 

Osakis Lake is twelve miles long and two or 
three wide ; its waters are quite cold, and abound 
with the largest and finest kind of fresh-water 
fish— wa!l-eved pike, bass, perch, and other. The 
Doctor, our one skillful fisherman, brought in a 
boat-load, eaught in an hour or two's drifting. 
The rest otThe camp spent the day in reading, 
writing, sewing, fishing, washing, cooking, and 
mending wagons. 

Ten or twelve miles over the very worst road 
yet, brought us to a place which, when it gets 
to be a place, is to be called Alexandria. Half 



of the distance and more was through woods. 
Look up, and there was gorgeous sunlight flood- 
ing the fresh young leaves, lighting up old oak 
trunks, and glorifjnng the brilliant Ijirch and ma- 
ple, pigeons flying or alit, robins and thrushes, 
and what other mellow-throated songsters I know- 
not, making the vistas and aisles of shadow alive 
with sound ; but look down, and your horse was 
balking at a labyrinth of stumps, where there 
was no place to put his foot : this extending for 
ten rods, and there terminating in a slough ag- 
gravated by the floating de^ris of a corduroy 
bridge, and this ending in a mud.hole, the black- 
ness of darkness, with one stump upright to ' 
prevent your wading comfortably through it, to 
transfix your horse or upset the cart. 

The carts and their drivers could not get 
through by daylight, but were compelled to stay 
in the woods and fight mosquitoes all night, 
reaching Alexandria about noon the next day. 
Joseph and I, on our ponies, " thridded the som- 
bre boskage of tlie wood," and got to Alexandria 
before dark. It was slow traveling, but, on sure- 
footed Indian ponies, not very disagreeable. Tho 
mosquitoes were our worst torment ; we avoided 
their terebrations by " taking the vail." 




^' -''^' ^^Z 



TAKING TW7. VArT- 




MAJOR PATTEN'S CEOSSINQ. 



About the middle of the afternoon we caught 
glimpses through the leaves of a lake at the riglit 
of us, and soon came to the short branch road 
which led to it. Leading our horses down to 
the water's edge, we observed a blazed tree just 
at the margin, and an inscription neatly writ- 
ten on the white wood, with date and name of 
tlie company hj whom it Iiad been cut. 

Coming out on the beautiful prairie which is 
the site of Alexandria, we were surprised to see 
tlie wagons and tents of IVIessrs. Burbank and 
Blakely's first two stage loads, showing that tlieir 
road-makers were not far enough ahead for them 
to follow on. Is it possible that I have forgot- 
ten to tell the romance of that stage load ? Two 
Scotch girls, sisters, journeying without any pro- 
tector save their good looks and good sense, 
from Scotland to Lake Athabasca, where one of 
them was to redeem her plighted faith and marry 
a Hudson Bay Company's officer. Ocean voyage 
alone, two or three thousand miles' travel through 
.a strange country to St. Paul alone, then this 
journey by stage to Fort Abercrombie, camping 
out and cooking their own food, and voyaging 
down Eed River in a batteau, near a thousand 
miles more, and fired at by Red Lake Indians 
on the way, then journeying with a Company's 



brigade to Athabasca, going north all the while 
and winter coming on too, and the mercury 
traveling down to the bulb; but her courage 
sinking never a bit. Hold her fast when you 
get her, Athabascan! She is a heroine, and 
slioiild be the mother of heroes. 

And the brave bridesmaid sister ! Wliere are 
"the chivalry?" Letters take about a year to 
get to Athabasca, gentlemen. 

Three English sjjortsmen and their guns, tents, 
and dogs filled another stage. They had iiunted 
in Canada and Floi-ida, shot crocodiles in the 
valley of the Nile, fished for salmon in Norway, 
and were now on their way to the buitalo-plains 
of the Saskatchewan to enjoy the finest sport of 
all. Purdy rifles, Lancaster rifles, Wesley Rich- 
ards's shot-guns, and Manton's shot-guns, sin- 
gle-barreled and double-barreled : these were 
their odds against brute strength and cunning. 
One of tiiem was a baronet, the others Oxford 
men, and all might have passed a life of ease in 
London with society, libraries, establishments ; 
but this wild life, with .all its discomforts and 
privations and actual hardships and hard work, 
had more attractions for them in its freedom^ 
its romance, its adventure. Their stories were 
of beleaguered proctors and bear fights. Hyde 



Park and deer-stalking, Eotten Row rides and 

moose hunts. Next year we may hear of them 
up the Orinoco or in South Africa. Better there 
than wasting away manliness in "society," or 
tlie " hells," or in bribing electors ; but is there 
not soraetliing else in all England worth living 
and working for ? 

One of the three was a splendid rifle-shot. 
With my Maynard rifle, breach-loading and 
weighing only six pounds, unlike any thing he 
had ever handled, he plumped a sai-diue-bo.x at 
distances of 100, 150, 200, and 300 yards, and 
hit the small tree, in a cleft of which it was 
fastened, almost every time in twenty. 

Our tented field was a fair beginning for a 
town. In fact, we far outnumbered the actual 
population of Alexandria. Josejjh and I were 
glad enough to be permitted to enjoy more than 
municipal privileges under the roof of Judge 

^ • If pioneers were all of the kind that 

have founded Alexandria, civilization and re- 
finement would travel west as fast as settlements, 
instead of being about a decade behind. The 
house was built of hewn logs, of course ; but in- 
side grace and beauty struggled with the rough- 
ness of such raw materials and came off victori- 
ous, and yet nothing was out of place. There 
was an air about the main room that made you 
remember that the grandest queen walked on 
rush-strewn floors not half so fine as these spot- 
less planks— and what wall-paper had such deli- 
cate hues as the pealed bark revealed on tiie 
timber beneath ?— and there was a woman's trick 
in the fill of the window-curtains and the hang- 
ing of the net over the spotless counterpane in 
tlie corner, and the disposition of things on the 
bureau, crowned by its vaseful of beautiful 
prairie flowers. Here we enjoyed such dinner- 
table chat and such long evening talks, W. and 



I, witli .Judge G and his wife, as made us 

wish we had known them in London Terrace ten 
years ago, though we could regret the absence 
of none of the luxuries which they were dailv 
proving a well-ordered life could be lived without. 
Alexandria is environed by beautiful lakes- 
lakes which I obstinately refuse to rhapsodize 
over, simply because they are so many and all 
deseiTe it. To a promontory jutting out into 
one of these I took a seven-mile walk early one 
drizzly morning, with one of our party, accom- 
panied by a hound, for which he had returned to 
follow up the scent of a deer which he said he 
had shot and wounded badly two hours before 
We found the place— the leaves were splashed 
with blood— gave the dog the scent, and followed 
his wild running for two or three miles, but saw 
no deer, and walked home in the rain. Now 
there are three hypotheses, together exhaustive, 
which may explain this unfortunate occurrence. 
Either the deer was not badly wounded, and went 
further on, "making no sign," or the dog was 
not a good dog, or, if a good dog, had had his 
nose spoiled in killing skunks, which is possible. 
I never will believe that a chipmonk has as much 
blood in his veins as was scattered over those 
leaves, or that any sane man could mistake a 
squirrel for a deer. 

First day's travel from Alexandria train made 
2i miles. Best four-wheel wagon had all its 
spokes onished out falling into some rut in a 
wood-road. Next day we got on a dozen miles 
farther to Chippewa crossing. A jjarty of fifty 
Cliiijpewas were hunting and fishing in the 
vicinity. Two dusky boys watched us erossltig 
from their canoe and laughed, I fancy, at white 
paddling. A sliower came up, but before the 
shallow lake had put on its goose-flesh to meet 
the rain-drops, their paddles were out, and thev 




"now I LAY UE— ' 



skimming the water, straight as a crow flies, 
fhrough the rushes to the shelter of trees whicli 




overhung the water, and there the canoe rested 
motionless again, and they watched us in silence. 
They had speared half a dozen buftalo-fish (of a 



i „ ^.w^^u «i.jii*iw-iiou ^^ui a 

■ather coarse meat), and a jjlug of tobacco bought 
all we wanted for supper. 

I beg to be excused from mentioning the fact 
that, at this crossing, my pony in fonr-feet water, 
and with only two rods to dry land, disgracefully 
neighed a 

^^Now I lay me — " 
and squatted, yes ! squatted down in the water, 
positively refusing to obey whip or spur till I 
had got ot( his back and walked to dry land, 
leading him. It is also needless to mention that 
my saddle, saddle-bags, Sliakspearc, and sketch- 
book, together with all of me that is fishy in 
mermen, became, to use a mild term, damp. 

The prairie from Alexandria to Otter Tail 
River was a very beautiful one, the hills moder- 
ately high but of gentle slopes, their green grassy 
sides flecked with wild flowers of a thousand brill- 
iant or quiet hues, and then eveiy mile or two 
a high swell of land from which we could look 
over these smaller undulations to the great green 
wave rising to its height again. As we passed 
over these successive heights, about noon we 
caught sight in tlie distance of a beautiful lake, 
which, on approaching nearer, appeared to have 
a line of ' ' white caps" running through it. Little 
wind was blowing, but the illusion was perfect. 
As we approaclied nearer, however, and saw 
that the white wave remained in the same place, 
it occuiTcd to us that we were looking at an isl- 
and of pelican ; and this became evident when 
we saw small portions of it disintegrating about 
the edges, and drifting away in white clouds, re- 
lieved against the blue sky or the deeper blue of 
the lake, or as they floated past the tree-covered 
islands and promontories which pushed their 
gray sandy beaches out into the water from 
either shore. 

I have never seen a lake which, for variety 
and grace of outline, apjieared to me so beauti- 
ful as this, though, to be sure, its beauty was 
far from being of a striking sort. As Joseph 
and I mounted to ride on after the train we 
observed a large flock of the same birds circling 
high in air overhead. The sight was worth go- 
ing far to see. There were hundreds of them 
sweeping around in slow and stately flight— the 
distance transforming all their ungainliness into 
grace, and the bright sunlight clotliing them in 
white splendor. 

To the right and left of us, from Osakis Lake, 
the head of tlie Sauk Valley, to Otter Tail or 
Upper Red River, lakes of every variety of out- 
line were visible as we journeyed on. Some 
were near at hand— our trail at times leading 
over their sandy or pebbled beaches, or upon 
others we looked down from the summit of a hill 
of rolling prairie, and again from the loftier 
ridges of the undulating land sea, tlie eye, sweep, 
ing the horizon, could trace the outlines of a 
dozen within the limits of its vision, near or re- 
mote — bluer than the stainless heavens, or blend- 
ing in the hazy distance with the long waving 




i^A 




JIEST VIEW OF THE EEB RITEE OF THE KOHTH. 



grass which sloped to the water's edge, or the 
black and brown rushes which, like timorous 
swimmers, did not venture far from shore, or 
with the deeper green of wooded capes and isl- 
ands, which caught the fierce sunlight and shaded 
its fall upon the gentle waters, casting themselves 
away upon the beaches. Joseph rhapsodized 
and I applauded. 

"These little lakes are my private passion — 
deep-set, dark-shadowed lakes, cozy nooks of 
sunshine that one may own within the compass 
of a farm— pocket-editions of poetry in velvet and 
gold— little lakes that, from under their wooded 
fringes, gleam with an under-soul, and flash back 
the introverted glances of the stars from depths 
as pure as the heights of the down-gazing heav- 
ens, such a lake as you can take into your con- 
fidence, and talk to in quiet hours as a lover talks 
to the image in a golden locket, and sees the cold 
crystal all aglow and shadowy -nith passion like 
a woman's eye." 

It was our habit to ride ahead of the train a 



[ mile or two, or behind it, if we staid to hunt or 
sketch or for sight-seeing. So riding the next 
morning, our eyes were the first to get sight of 
the waters which run to the frozen seas of the 
north. For four or five miles, at every elevation, 
we had seen ahead of us a line of timber, and be- 
yond level prairie, which we knew must be the 
trees skirting the Otter Tail or Upper Red River, 
where, a young and wayward stream, it flows to 
the south and west, hither and thither, before 
gaining breadth and volume and gathering trib- 
utary waters, it turns to its final direction, and 
thenceforward flows with steady currents toward 
the northern star. The prairie within this bend, 
and toward which we were traveling, moreover, 
we knew to be level instead of rolling like that 
to the east ; so on we spurred, and, surmounting 
a summit, on the hither side of which it seemed 
that the nearest curve of the river must still be 
miles away, there the river ran at our verv feet, 
bursting suddenly upon us in its full loveliness 
like a goddess disrobing. 



The day was the fourth of the month July, 
and this was our unexpected celebration of tlie 
Nation's gala-day. Taking the saddles from our 
horses, and leaving them to their independence, 
we sat down upon the brow of a high hill over- 
looking tlie river for miles of its wayward wind- 
ings. Pen and penqjil are both inadequate ; but 
the pencil is better than the pen. And as I 
sketched, Joseph made the oration. 

We remained here for the rest of the day. 
The place is called D.ayton, after a gentlemjin 
who, like millions 'of his fellow-freemen, was 
nol elected Vice-President. The present pojm- 
lation numbers one. They live alone by him- 
self in a breezy log-house, with a little oft'-shoot 
containing bunks and a cooking-stove, and whose 
walls are hung with dried sturgeons and cat- 
fishes, caught in the river. 

Breckinridge is about twenty miles below Day- 
ton, in a southwest direction, and is situated ]jre- 
cisely at the point where the river begins its gen- 
eral northwardly course, at the junction of the 
Bois de Sioux. Fort Abercrombie is about the 
same distance northwest of Breckinridge ; so that 
our trail toward the fort from Dayton was the 
liy])othenuse of the river's angle. 

When the gulfs of wood that marked the 
course of Red River had faded into dimness, 
and sunk below the horizon behind us, nothing 
was visible but the sky and this level grass stretch- 
ing away in every direction. There were lines 
of lighter and deeper shade in the green and yel- 
low herbage, flecks of brilliant flowers, cool blue 
skies, and a clearly defined horizon at the east ; 
and under the setting sun a yellower hue in the 
sky, and hazier lines upon the distant and waver- 
ing bands of shade and light where earth and 
sky met. At night we camped beside a marsh ; 
and when the last red streak had faded out of the 
sky, the full sublimity of the scene burst upon 
the mind. A night upon the prairie is worth a 
day at Niagara. As fiir as the eye can reach on 



hemisphere of stars looks down upon you, and 
all the earth occupying the least possible angle 
of vision. 

Just as we were camping for the night a com- 
pany of Red River carts appeared upon the hori- 
zon. At first we could hardly imagine what 
they were — for a moment widening out into bat- 
talions, and then shrinking to the width of a sin- 
gle company, as the trail came directly toward 
or was at right angles to us, so that it seemed 
as if we were gazing at the evolutions of a grand 
army. As they came nearer the illusion was 
dispelled, and the train began to look like what 
it was — a huge land caravan. Presently we saw 
galloping ahead of the train^- young man, well 
mounted, who in a few moments drew rein under 
the Stars and Strijics. which we had patriotical- 
ly hoisted when we first saw their white flag of 
march fluttering in the distance. The rider, a 
young M'Kay,who was captain of the train, was 
well mounted, and sat his horse finely. His 
clear, bronzed face was set off by a jaunty cap. 
Ho wore a checked flannel shirt, and each shoul- 
der bore its fancy wampum bead belt, that sus- 
l)ended the powder-horn and shot-jjouch. He 
had upon his feet moccasins worked with beads 
and quills, and carried in his hand a short-han- 
dled riding-whip, with a long thick lash of buf- 
falo hide. Meanwhile, as we exchanged the 
news and friendly questionings, the train had 
approached, one cart after another wheeling by 
in longprocession— scores upon scores, each wheel 
in every cart having its own individual creak or 
shriek, and each cart drawn by an ox harness- 
ed in rawhide, one driver to three carts. The 
drivers were all half-breeds, dressed in every va- 
riety of costume, but nearly all showing some 
flash of gaudy color in the invariable belt or 
sash, or in the moccasins, and politely touching 
the cap with a "Bon jour!"tosuch of usasstood 
near enough to return the salutation. 

The next morning, as we were eating break- 



every side sweep the level lines, slowly darken- ' fast, a new party a^ieared, which soon turned 
mg as they approach the horizon. Nothing ob- out to be Sir George Simpson, the Governor of 
structs or limits the view of the sky. A whole ' the Hudson's Bay Company in America and 




FOUT AOEBOSOMDIE, 



The day was the fourth of the month July, 
and this was our unexpected celebration of the 
Nation's gala-day. Taking the saddles from our 
horses, and leaving tlieni to their independence, 
we sat down upon the brow of a high hill over- 
looking the river for miles of its wayward wind- 
ings. Pen and pennjl arc botli inadequate ; but 
the pencil is better than the pen. And as I 
sketched, Joseph made the oration. 

We remained here for the rest of the day. 
The place is called Dayton, after a gentleman 
who, like millions 'of his fellow-freemen, was 
not elected Vice-President. The present pojju- 
lation numbers one. They live alone by him- 
self in a, breezy log-house, with a little off-shoot 
containing bunks and a cooking-stove, and whose 
walls are hung with dried stm-geons and cat- 
fishes, caught in the river. 

Breckinridge is about twenty miles below Day- 
ton, in a southwest direction, and is situated pre- 
cisely at the point where the river begins its gen- 
eral nortliwardly course, at the junction of the 
Bois de Sioux. Fort Abercrombie is about the 
same distance northwest of Breckinridge ; so that 
our trail toward the fort from Dayton was the 
hypothenuse of the river's angle. 

When the gulfs of wood that marked the 
course of Red River had faded into dimness, 
and sunk below the horizon behind us, nothing 
was visible but the sky and this level grass stretch- 
ing away in every direction. There were lines 
of lighter and deeper shade in the gi-een and yel- 
low lierbage, flecks of brilliant flowers, cool blue 
skies, and a clearly defined horizon at the east ; 
and under the setting sun a yellower hue in the 
sky, and hazier lines upon the distant and waver- 
ing bands of shade and light where earth and 
sky met. At night we camped beside a marsh ; 
and when the last red streak had fiided out of the 
sky, the full sublimity of the scene burst upon 
the mind. A night upon the prairie is worth a 
day at Niagara. As far as the eye can reach on 
every side sweep the level lines, slowly darken- 
ing as they approach the horizon. Nothing ob- 
structs or limits the view of the sky. A whole 



hemisphere of stars looks down upon you, and 
all the earth occupying the least possible angle 
of vision. 

Just as we were camping for the night a com- 
pany of Red River carts appeared upon the hori- 
zon. At first we could hardly imagine what 
they were — for a moment widening out into bat- 
talions, and then shrinking to the width of a sin- 
gle company, as the trail came directly toward 
or was at right angles to us, so that it seemed 
as if we were gazing at the evolutions of a grand 
army. As they came nearer the illusion was 
dispelled, and the train began to look like what 
it was — a huge land caravan. Presently we saw 
galloping ahead of the train ^- young man, well 
mounted, who in a few moments drew rein under 
the Stars and Stripes, which we had patriotical- 
ly hoisted when we first saw their white flag of 
march fluttering in the distance. The rider, a 
young M'Kay, who was captain of the train, was 
well mounted, and sat his horse finely. His 
clear, bronzed face was set oft' by a jaunty cap. 
He wore a cheeked flannel shirt, and each shoul- 
der bore its fancy wampum bead belt, that sus- 
pended the powder-horn and shot-jjouch. He 
had upon his feet moccasins worked with beads 
and quills, and carried in his hand a short-han- 
dled riding-whip, with a long thick lash of buf- 
falo hide. Meanwhile, as we exclianged the 
news and friendly questionings, the train had 
approached, one cart after another wheeling by 
in longprocession — scores upon scores, each wheel 
in every cart having its own individual creak or 
shriek, and each cart drawn by an ox harness- 
ed in rawhide, one driver to three carts. The 
drivers were all half-breeds, dressed in every va- 
riety of costume, but nearly all showing some 
flash of gaudy color in the invariable belt or 
sash, or in the moccasins, and politely touching 
the cap with a "Bon jour! " to such of us as stood 
near enough to return the salutation. 

The next morning, as we were eating break- 
fast, a new party appeared, which soon turned 
out to be Sir George Simpson, the Governor of 
the Hudson's Bay Company in America, and 




FOaT ABEEOSOMBIE, 




CANTONMENTS, FOET ABEKCEOMBIE. 



his attendants. He was just returning from his 
annual visit to Norway House, and was only 
seven days from Fort Gany. He was accom- 
panied by relays of horses, and himself rode in 
an old buggy at a spanking gait. The voice, 
whicli is said to make chief factors and chief 
traders and chief clerks tremble, and which 
makes and mars fortunes in Rupert's Land, was 
to us strangers very jilc.asant in its tones. Our 
eyes followed the white round-topjied hat and 
white capote, as long as they were visible, with 
great interest, until we learned, too late, that 
one of the men in his party was Dr. Rae, the 
Arctic explorer. 

A few hours' ride the next morning brouglit 
us to the Red River of the North again, where it 
flowed northwardly six miles above (/. e., south 
of) Fort Abercrombie. We crossed at a con- 
venient fordiug-place, where the water was little 
liigher than the horses' flanks, aud galloped on 
to the fort. 

North of Gr.aham's Point, as we rounded a turn 
of the river, whose wooded margin had conceal- 
ed it from us hitlierto, we came in sight of Fort 
Abercrojnbie— that is, of the one building erect- 
ed for the commander's quarters, and the canvas 
store-houses, which aie built upon the jirairie 
near the river bank. The log-houses, which of- 
ficers and privates at present occu])y, are all built 
in a quadrangle upon a pear-shaped promontory, 
surrounded by water, aud a trifle lower tlian tlic 
level of the prairie. The view on the preceding 
page is taken from the neck of this pear-sha])ed 
promontoiy, looking west toward the prairie. 
The view above is taken from the same spot, 
back to back, looking cast toward the interior of 
the cantonment. 

Here were our old stage-coach friends, the 



Englishmen, quartered in their tents, and the 
Scotch lasses, by the kindness of Captain Davis, 
quartered in one of the completed rooms of the 
building shoim in the first sketch, where they 
were awaiting the construction of their batteau. 
Joseph found an old friend in the sutler of 
the fort, and by him we were introduced to the 
commander and princiijal officers. We enjoyed 
their hearty hospitality for the remainder of "the 
day and niglit. As we sat in the Captain's quar- 
ters at tlie close of the afternoon, smoking out 
tlie mosquitoes with Manilla cheroots, and listen- 
ing to his entertaining accounts of life on the 
border, an orderly brought news of another train 
wishing to cross the river at this point. Pres- 
ently they came along, the cattle bearing new 
armies of mosquitoes over the neck, and through 
the cantonment to the place where the Anson 
Norlimp was moored. 

Wheeling their loaded carts on the boat, they 
swung it back and forth, from shore to sliore, til! 
all were ferried over, then drove their oxen into 
the water, swimming them across, and camped 
in the woods on the opposite side of the river. 

The Captain gave Joseph and myself a whole 
house to ourselves that night, with straw beds, 
which were a luxury after the cold ground ; and 
the delicious coolness of the room, with not a 
mosquito to sting or sing, soon sent us to sleep, 
the last sounds tliat fell upon our ears being tin 
songs of tlie half-breeds over the river— songs 
of their own nation, and of Sioux and Chippe- 
wa braves— rising and foiling in monotonous 
cadences till all were alike unheard. 

The steamboat Auson Northup deserves an 
epic. Here is the argument, to which I hope 
some one will yet gird himself to wi-ite a 
poem. 



Late in flie winter of 1858-'9, jlr. Anson 
Northup, having run liis boat up tlie Crow 
Wing Kiver, a tributary of the Mississipjji, 
tlie previous fall, took it to pieces, paciced the 
cabin, machinery, and timber for building the 
hull, on sleighs, which, with great difficulty, 
were drawn by horses and oxen across to Otter 
Tail Lake, and thence westward to the mouth 
of the Cheyenne on the Red River. Assisted 
by the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, but 
mainly depending on his own private resources, 
and by hard work and jjcrseverance, the boat 
was rebuilt on the banks of Red River, and 
launched snccessfiilly on the 10th of May, and, 
as the breaking bottle drenched the planks, was 
christened the Anson Northnp. In the high- 
water of early spring she made her trial-trip 
down to Fort Garry and back. She had to lie 
by every night, of course, and must have been 
greatly delayed by the necessity of stopjjing to 
cut timber for the fire. In spite of these delays, 
she made the return trip in eight days; and what 
must the quiet Selkirkers have thought of the 
American steamboat ? Tlie Albany burgomas- 
ters were not more amazed by the sound of the 
Chancellor Livinf/slon's paddles. 

And now about the navigation of Red River. 
Such navigation is undoubtedly feasible. The 
boat's two trips to Fort Gariy have demonstrated 
it. In the latter part of the fall, and in the win- 
ter of course, it is impracticable. After the ice 
breaks up, which usually happens about the 1st 
of May, the water is veiy high, and the river is 
navigable to as large steambo.ats as can make all 
the turns in the winding river, from Fort Aber- 
crombie to the mouth at Lake Winnipeg — near- 
ly five hundred miles. After the 1st of August 
the water has fallen sufficiently to reveal serious 
obstructions in the channel from the fort to the 



mouth of the Cheyenne River, its largest tribu- 
tary but one, entering Red River fifty or sixty 
miles below the fort. But from this jioint to its 
mouth it is easily navigable in the lowest stages 
of water, until the ice forms in early November. 
The success of the boat works a revolution in 
the Com]]any's business. Hereafter the annual 
outfit and returns will pass through the United 
States, instead of by the difficult and cii-cuitous 
passage of Hudson's Bay, to York and Moose 
Factories. 

The train did not cross the river above the 
fort as we did, but continued on for about fifty 
miles down the east side of the river to the 
Cheyenne Crossing, near the mouth of the Chey- 
enne River. Joseph and I, who had remained 
behind, crossed the river on the Anson Nortlwp, 
swimming our horses. We therefore had to 
ride thirty-four miles on the trail of the train, 
doing their two days' travel in one day, and that 
the hottest of the season. The air "was really 
furnace-like, reminding one of the accounts from 
India of the scorching heats of mid-day in that 
more tropical climate. 

But when we got to camp, two hours after 
sunset, there was still no rest for us. Mosqui- 
toes abounded, biting our hands, and necks, and 
faces, as we cooked our sujipcrs, and flying into 
our eyes and mouths whenever we dared to open 
either. At this season of the year mosquitoes 
are the intolerable curse of travelers, the little 
black fly the tolerable curse, and wood-ticks the 
curse. As for the rest of the entomological cre- 
ation, they bear no comparison with these in 
their power of inflicting annoyance and petty 
misery upon the human race ; and one soon gets 
the habit, I fouml, of brushing a spider from his 
fiice, an ant from his neck, or taking any creep- 
ing, crawling thing from the inside of his near- 




-rf si^gfc- 



m W 



TJIB 'aHSON NOETHUP." 




TUE &MUDGE. 



est piece of clothing, with the same indifference 
with which he brushes away a house-fly in 
Christian lands. But inasmuch as wood-ticl<s 
burrow into and under tlie skin, and stick fast 
and swell, and whereas these buffalo-gnats swarm 
in millions, and of a hot, sultiy afternoon, when 
little wind is stirring, will fly into the eyes, ears, 
and nostrils by scores ; and whereas mosquitoes 
buzz, and pierce, and suck, and sing by the thou- 
sand and tens of thousands, biting the hands, 
and face, and ears, and neck, when we ride 
through timber, and stinging us into. wakeful- 
ness before sunrise, cheating us of the delicious 
" last nap," and stinging us into a passion long 
after sunset, barricading with their filmy wings 
our way to the water, and, when both hands arc 
occupied, perforating our tenderest cuticles, and 
making of our level skin a rolling prairie of 
blotches and pimples for disturbing their ancient 
and solitary reign, it becomes nccessaiy to sleep, 
comfort, and happiness that traveling mankind 
should resort to the smudge. 

A few brands of rotten wood from the camp- 
fire, covered with dried grass and green grass, 
make a smudge about equally unendurable, 
whether inhaled by men or mosquitoes ; though 
of the two evils, mosquito or smudge, men pre- 
fer to endure that which is not quite intermina- 



ble, though it may be almost intolerable. Horses 
and mules, when the smoke begins to roll up in 
good volume, will stand over it, and in it, till 
the tears run down their long noses in streams, 
rather than endure the torments of mosquito- 
bites outside its protection. Every night wc 
closed the tent soon after dark, and smudged it 
out thoroughly, before going to blanket ; so that 
when we crawled in under the tent-flap, we felt 
rather than saw our way, and had to keep our 
mouths close to the ground to get enough fresh 
air to live on. During the night the smoke set- 
tles, fresh air filtrates through the canvas, and 
we slept as comfortably as on Howe's spring 
mattresses. 

We crossed the Red River into Dakotah Ter- 
ritory near the mouth of the Cheyenne River. 
At its mouth it is about one Imndred and 
twenty feet wide — a deep stream, of nearly t\vo- 
thirds the volume of Red River. From here to 
Pembina our route was through a dangerous In- 
dian country, inhabited by hostile Sioux. 

The watch was doubled, and added precau- 
tions taken against surprise or attack. It was a 
novel sensation to a peaceable man who had 
known no greater danger at night than the re- 
mote chance of being garroted on Broadway, or 
of being struck by lightning while sitting at his 



window in Ninth Street, to betliink liimsclf, 
at every sunset, of the prospect of an attack 
from liostile Indians, or a stamjiede of the liorses 
and mules gotten up l)y tliievisli ones, and to ])re- 
I)nrc for such prol)aliilities i.)y keejiing his ritic 
and pistcjls in (jerfeet oi'der — loaded and ca]iped, 
and at half-cock, and to take his tura at the 
watch. 

Joseph had a theory, howcTcr, that the Sioux 
were oif in some remote portion of their terri- 
tory, making treaties, and when his watch came 
around generally kicked the brands of tlie canip- 
iire, which his predecessor had carefully put out, 
into a blaze again, and sat down, with his ]jipc, 
in the light of it — the best possible mark for 
prowling Indians. He lives to tell the tale 
and show the hat with a bullet-hole through the 
crown. 

On Saturday, the second day after crossing at 
Dakotah City, as the one log-honso at the cross- 
ing of Red River is called, we had a long day's 
tr.ivel over ])rairie where there was no wood or 
water, and with the exception of an hour's rest 
at noon by the side of a slougli where the horses 
could manage to drink a little, the train was 
kept in motion, from eight in the morning till 
seven at night. 

About five o'clock the sharpest-sighted of us 
horsemen, riding ahead of the train, on ascend- 
ing a ridge of the prairie which overlooked the 



valley of the Elm River, saw, clear away on the 
edge of the horizon, where the heat of the snn 
nuule the level lines of the prairie tremulous, 
and seemed to fuse earth and sky, two black 
spots, motionless, and looking like nothing that 
we had been accustomed to see. Tliey were 
buifalocs, of course, we all agreed ; or, as Jo- 
se])h frantically exdain^ed, " Viaiuls for a regi- 
ment of Imngry gods, brought to us in the pock- 
ets of Jupiter's old coat!" A bull's hide, you 
remember, with a bull inside of it. For half an 
hour we all trotted along in their direction, keep- 
ing together, and .still wondering whether they 
were in reality a coujjle of str.ay buffalo bulls, or 
some huge boulders outraging geological ortho- 
doxy. The space between the sjiots grew wider 
— they were bufialo, browsing along on the 
prairie, and still unconscious of our approach. 
Two of our horsemen tightened their reins for a 
brisk canter, and led off at a rate of speed which 
woidd have been rtiinous to Jose])h's pony, or to 
mine, so early in the chase. We kept on at a 
steady jog. The wind was in our faces, and the 
two riders ahead got within a quarter of a mile 
of the game before they were <liscovered. Then 
we saw their dark frames turned broadside for 
an instant, and the next moment the chase had 
begun. We, too, joined with a wild hurrah, 
spurring our horses to their best gallop ; ahead 
of us the two monsters, flouting their shaggj- 




DASOTAB OITT. 



inanes, and thundering along at a wonderful 
latc, and tlie two riders after tliein at full speed, 
with great good sense beading them and turning 
their flight toward us, who were coming up as 
fast as our second-rate horse-flesh would permit. 
[ was riding Dan Kice, now as ever, tough 
and lazy ; but by plying whip and spur, and 
shrieking to him like any wild Indian, I got him 
into speed, and soon neared the boys, who were 
now alongside the first of the shaggy monsters, 
tiring and wheeling away as the stalely old fel- 
lows plunged on, heedless of the galling bullets. 
The thrilling excitement of that chase '. The 
buflaloes galloping in their heavy, headlong 
way, as if they knew their lives were in the 

chase; C , with one or two shots more in 

his revolver, and determined they should be fa- 
tal, close alongside the flanks of the one into 
which they had emptied their barrels ; and 
L , wild with excitement, begging for an- 
other pistol or a rifle. My pony could barely 

get alongside, but at last he did. C drew 

back ; and I saw for an instant the red spots on 
ills gieat side bleeding; then levele<l my light 
rifle like a pistol, with one hand, and fired, the 
muzzle almost against his shoulder. He stag- 
gered into a quicker flight, and in another direc- 
tion, away from the larger bull, still untouched, 
who was thundering on ahead. He, too, tum- 
id. I saw my chance; left the first one to tliose 
who had earned the right to dispatch him, and 
rode in such a wa)- as to separate the pair, mark- 
ing the foremost one for a chase. I reloaded as 
•ioon as possible, all the while at full gallop, 
bnt net gaining an inch on the buffalo, though 
close upon his heels, not half a dozen rods away, 
ind he every moment turning that black, shaggy 
iiead to the one side or the other to see his pur- 
•^aer. A stem chase is a long one. Every pore 
was streaming, and I threw ofi" my coat, tied it 
behind me, threw away the stirrups, clapped 
iicels to pony, and yelled him into a faster gait. 

I never knew what physical excitement was 
before, and thought the oddest things while in 
that exciting race. The tones of my own voice 
amazed my mind. I wondered if I should ever 
ask any woman to love me, in the voice with 
which I besought Dan to fly faster. All j^as- 
sion and pathos were in the tone; and yet, some- 
how, though the blood was boiling, and I was so 
light that it seemed as if the wind blew through 
me, my mind sat apart and wondered how it 
could be that its highest functions were for an 
instant usurped, and my heart trembled at such 
living f^mblance of its noblest moods. 

A mile or two of those tremendous strides be- 
gan to tell upon the hea\-y creature, and his gait 
grew sensibly slacker. Dan gradually gained 
upon him, and as I got alongside I pulled trig- 
ger. For the only time in all my use of the 
rifle the cap snapped, but the cartridge failed to 
catch the fire. BuflTalo-bull tnmed with a terri- 
ble snort, head and homs down, and made for 
pony and me. He was not the bull to be in- 
sulied by snapping caps. Pony wouldn't fight, 
shame upon him ! but gathered up his heels 



quicker than lightning, and leaped a great leap 
ahead of him, and around to the other side. If 
he had turned, two horns would have disembow- 
eled him. Luckily for me my feet were out of the 
stimijjs and my seat was firm, or I might have 
been sent kiting into the air and down by bull's 
feet, instead of enjoying that spinal thrill from 
Dan's tightening loins. Bufi'alo-bull did not fol- 
low as far, but turned and made oflT at a small 
angle, using his best legs — four of them. I 
brought pony to a stand, toes down, drew a bead 
for the vital spot just behind the fore-shoulder, 
and fired. Buffalf^bull, that had galloped on 
four legs, hobbled on three. I had fired a little 
too far forward, and broken the shoulder-blade, 
I had no more cartridges, but walked my horse 
along as fast as the bull could hobble, till an- 
other came and dispatched him later in the day. 
One of our party, the son of a rich Boston 
merchant — a clever scape-grace, who liad trav- 
eled the world over, and, among other things, 
had bought np and killed beef for California 
miners in '49 — superintended the cutting-up of 
the buffalo. Axes and butcher-knives soon 
dissected the huge carcass, and two carts were 
loaded with the meat from the two bulls, and 
wheeled into camp late that evening. Rousing 
fires had been built, and " Bony," the scientific 
co<jk of the Agony Hall mess, gave us all steaks 
and fries and "txjuillons" that night, and as long 
as tlie fresh meat lasted. The next day (Sun- 
day) was spent in jerking the meat — i. c, cut- 
ting it in thin slices, and drying it in the sun or 
over a slow fire, the smoke keeping off flies and 
gnats. 

My only coat — a corduroy, with the pockets 
full of jjapers — liad tumbled off in the buflTalo 
chase. Monday morning, an hour before sun- 
rise, Joseph and I went to search for it. We 
took along a half-breed bred to prairie life, with 
keen eyes, and the promise of reward as an eye- 
opener. We had for a base of operations an 
imaginary line drawn from the head of the first 
buffalo killed, directly west half a mile. I knew 
that my coat was within a hundred yards of that 
line. We searches] for miles and miles around ; 
it was less than five miles from the camp to where 
the carcass lay, but not a hair of it could we see. 
The wolves could not have eaten it, and it cer- 

'. tainly stood np two feet from the ground, a 
black, liairy mass, the most conspicuous kind of 
a way-mark. But we might as well have looked 
for the track of Columbus's ship, left, in the fall 

1 of 1492, east of San Salvador, in the middle of 
the Atlantic Ocean. The sea is not more path- 

' less than a level prairie. 

The next Monday aftcmoon we reached Pem- 

I bina. During that week one day's travel was 

' very much like another. Joseph comfmred our 
daily topography to successive pancakes which 
we seemed to }>e tuming off the immense grid- 
dle of the horizon, smoking hot from the fiery 
oven of the sun. On the right of us, with our 
glasses we could see the distant line of timber 
marking the northwarQ course of Red River; 
about every day we crossed some one of its west- 



em tributarios — first a line of blue on the north- 
ern horizon, resolvint; itself into trees wliiuh wo 
graduiilly ncarcd, jihin^jed into, fording tlic 
stream wliicli ran throiij^b tlieni, and omerj;- 
ing on the other side to anotlier stretch of open 
prairie, terminated at tlic distance of twenty or 
thirty miles by another timbered stream. Some- 
times we had no water but swamp water, and no 
wood but tlie Imls tie var.hc, or " buffalo chips," 
which gave an unpleasant Havoring to our cook's 
savory pancakes ; and once we got stuck, late in 
the afternoon, in the middle of a huge marsh, 
where with great ditiiculty we found a bit of dry 
ground big enough to spread our blankets on, 
going supperless to bed, and waiting for daylight 
to extricate ourselves fi-ora the wilderness of 
sloughs and marshes that environed us. Elm 
River, Goose Kiver, Turtle River, Little Salt 
River, I'ark River, and their numberless tributa- 
ries, were those which we crossed. On the banks 
ijf Park River we fjund a little orchard of blue- 
berries, and in less than ten minutes from the 
first alarm every body was on his hands and 
knees among the bushes, renewing the joys of 
youth. Strawberries, too, grow tliicker as we 
advanced. Tficy were near bringing one of our 
party to grief— one whom we all liked. He had 
a habit of walking ahead of the train for a mile 
or two, picking strawberries and wool-gathering, 
and besides, was very near-sighted. The train 
stopped to send after fresh meat — a young and 

fat bull, killed by L after a four-mile chase 

— and the ijhilosoiihcr trudged on. When we 
were in motion again somebody asked, " Where's 
T ?" He was nowhere to bo seen. Some- 
thing must be done. One officious personage, 
who at that time commanded the commander 
of the train, said, "Of course he is ahead," and 
objected to delaying the train till search was 
made. 

Joseph had no idea of leaving his friend alone 
on the prairie, and relinked this volunteered in- 
humanity with the information that he (brute) 
might go on as soon as he chose, and as far as he 
chose ; but as for him (Josejih), the train might 
travel till sundown before he would stir another 
step till the missing man was found. So ho took 
the sharp-eyed Cree half-I)reed along with him, 
mounted on my horse, and started off in the di- 
rection where, during the afternoon, a spot had 
been seen, which the man with the spy-glass had 
pronounced an Indian, and the man with a 
field-glass had pronounced an elk, and we with- 
out glasses had pronounced buffalo ; and which 

it was thought might be T . The train 

kept on slowly till it came to the first wood and 
water, and there camped. About sundown Jo- 
seph and the Cree half-breed came into camp 
with the philosopher between them. The rest 
of the story Joseph shall tell in his own words : 
"The last authentic recollection of the phi- 
losopher was during the buffalo-hunting news, 
when ho was seen, like 

" ' Grout Orion, sloping elowly to the Wont,' 
hunting for strawberries in labyrinths of reflec- 
tion. The savant, it was known, had lost his 



spectacles ; .and now it began to be feared that 
he bad lost himself in the bewildering mazes of 
his strawberry search. We had not gallojjed 
a mile befoi'o the half-breed's quick eye caught 
the figure — \vhich had been buffalo, elk, Indian, 
and what not, an hour before — standing, ap- 
parently motionless, on the summit of a distant 
ridge, some five miles off', visible to me through 
a glass only as a vague black line against 
the sky. A very anxious interval of doubt was 
passed at the swiftest pace of our horses before 
we were at all sure that the dim object was ray 
best friend. Speculation gradually dawned into 
recognition ; and as we approached him, the 
geographer of the Northwest descended from his 
eminence, and saluted us with a bland ;ind quiet 
courtesy, as if he felt quite at home, and was 
going to ask us to take something. 'I'lie geog- 
rapher was utterly lost on his own grouiul, and 
had not the least idea where he was. I'icking 
strawberries he wandered outside of the trail, 
forgot on which side of it he was, and took, of 
course, the exactly wrong direction in trying to 
find his way b.ack ; and so, after wandering for 
a while among blueberries and eagles' nests and 
buffalo tracks, he concluded that he was lost, and 
deliberately made up his mind to cam]) there, in 
sight for miles around, till he was sent for." 




UUFFALO CIIA8K. 



TO RED RIVER AND BEYOND. 

[Sccontr Dajier.] 



IT was tlie miilLlle of a hot July afternoon 
when we came to camp on the south side of 
Pembina Kiver — I'cmljina and the Peinbinese 
over the way. Joseph and I put on clean 
shirts, crossed the river in a canoe, and went to 
ask for our letters and jiajiers. The mail-car- 
rier, coming by a different route, had arrived be- 
fore us. To Magenta had been added Montc- 
-bello, and the thirty thousand slain ; and tlicn 
followed silence and newslessness for three 
months. 

Who that reads the papers has not heard of 
Minnesota and the man that fignrc^d in oim' New 
York I'unih as a runaway with tlie Cajiitol on 
his shoulders? Town lot sjiecnlators striving to 
have the Capitol elsewhere than at St. Paul (all 



but Minnesotians have forgotten the name of the 
town now — such its obscurity) ; carrying the bill 
making tlie change through a Legislature too 
virtuous for cakes and ale, and then getting a 
double checkmate from the Chairman of the 
Committee on Enrolled Rills, wlio ran oft' with 
the Removal Bill in his |iocket — ran off, on 
snow-shoes and with a dog-lrain, to Pembina, it 
was said — ran oif to Room No. 27 Fuller llonse, 
St. Paul, for a fact: and there hibernated, eat- 
ing Buri-eptitious turkeys and bass by day, an<l 
drinking smuggled whisky by night, till the time 
of legal adjournment, disappointing the couriers 
sent out to overtake him, and so by bad means 
achieving a good end, and determining the loca- 
tion of the Capitol at its proper place, St. Paul. 



Tho runaway Chaiiraan was Joe Kolette ; and 
here, at Pembina, he reigns King of the Border. 
Short, muscular, a liullety liead, the neck and 
chest of a young bufl'alo bull, small hands and 
feet, but with tough and knotty flexors and ex- 
tensors forther u]) ; full bearded, cap, sliirt, nat- 
ty neckerchief, belt, trowsers, and dandy little 
moccasins — so be looks to the eye. Inside of 
all this there is a man of character, educated in 
New York ; but with a score of wild, adventur- 
ous years on the frontier behind him — a man of 
character who asserts himself always, whatever 
the right or wrong of the assertion. Of unfail- 
ing good spirits, brimful of humor, blue tlu'ec 
days in the year — no more and no less — sticking 
to his belief in a breezy, liealtjiy way, and be- 
licring first and iilways in Joe Rolette ; bospita- 
ble and generous beyond reckoning, and reckon- 
ing on equal unselfishness in return ; giving you 
bis best horse if you ask for it, and taking your 
two mules if he needs them ; living for years 
where he might have made a fortune, and never 
saWng a penny ; a good Catholic, believing es- 
pecially in absolution ; a Douglas Democrat to 
tlie spinal column, and always to be counted on 
for good majorities from Pembina — threatening 
horse-ponds and nine duckings to any " Black 
liepublican" who dares settle in the vicinity, and 
opening his house, and larder, and stables to the 
blackest Republican of all ; always working for 
a party better than for himself, and in his zeal 
for public ends debiting the aggregate responsi- 
bility with the morality of tlie private means ; 
lending a passing traveler his best butt'alo run- 
ners for a hard journey, and then running races 
with them at the end of tlie second day's travel ; 
affectionate to his half-breed wife, and jiroud of 
his boys — miniature Joes, of ditl'erent sizes ; 
swearing by Louis Najiolcon, and proud of the 
French blood ; too generous to his debtors to he 
just to his creditors ; fond of his whisky, but 
undergoing months of total abstinence for the 




* 



_ ■ ^^^^fos^^^ftiSgie' 



JOE BOLETTE. 



sake of his wife ; his best friend, the man who 
is not hampered by the laws of trade ; his worst 
enemy, himself. 

Tliere he stands, just off the superb horse, 
which he sits as close as a Centaur, lighting a 
jiipe, a score of wolfish train-dogs yelping about 
him ; and as he walks across the inclosure roll- 
ing out a sturdy welcome to majilk, who sits by 
the open window waiting for him, with love and 
patience in her eyes ; and lifting up the young- 
ster wlio has run out for a kiss — Ijiting off the 
kiss with a Cree sentence to the half-breed re- 
tainer standing at the horse's head waiting for 
orders, or a Clii])pewa salute to some Red Lake 
Indian waiting to beg for ]JOwder and toliacco 
for the winter's hunt ; and rounding all with an 
English damn to the yellow dog whose enthusi- 
asm has entangled him and his yoke between his 
master's legs. 

Joe gave us our letters, brought some tobac- 
co and fresh pipes, inquired the news, showed 
us a room, and told us to be at home in it till 
we left Pembina ; spoke an aside to ynu Jille, in 
Nistoneaux, to lay a table full of plates for all 
his guests ; fed us witli buffalo tongues and 
New England dough-nuts, and strawberries ; 
and then, with fresh pipes, we tired the night 
out discussing polities, the spring hunt, dogs, 
Joe's exploit with the Capitol bill, the best road 
to the Rocky Mountains, Governor Gorman and 
his "I too am a soldier," Dakotah and the 
Sioux Treaty, Minnesota and the Overland 
Route, dog-trains and train-dogs, and, first and 
last, Louis Napoleon and the great battles. 

It was three days before the expedition's boil 
came to a head and expelled its rotten core — a 
tent full of scape-graces, who, from this point, 
took their own way to Fraser River. The ex- 
pedition itself convalesced rapidly ; and, outfit- 
ting with fresh pemmican, was ready to start 
upon its travels again within the week. The 
interval was spent in sight-seeing, while the 
horses and mules rested. 

One day we called upon old Peter Haydcn, a 
settler since "eighteen hundred and ever so 
few;" one of the first, perhaps tho very first, to 
lead trade through the valley of Red River into 
our territories ; who packed his goods back and 
forth from Prairie du Chien, then an old French 
tra|Jing-post, when all the trade of the valleys 
of the Ohio and Mississippi was carried on pack- 
horses from Fort Pitt to Philadeliihia across the 
Allcghanies. The old man, an Irishman, looks 
weather-beaten now, and leads a qnict life on a 
fivriu whose barley may be boasted of; at least, 
there was a story in camp that one of our s«- 
I'lni.t, holding up a stalk, saw two heads of bar- 
ley where less fructuous eyes eould see but one. 

The next day Mr. Kennedy, the clerk in 
charge of Pembina Fort (two miles north of the 
mouth of Pembina River, on the banks of Red 
River), a Hudson Bay Company's station, call- 
ed, and invited us to visit the fort. Four of us 
filled Joe's wagon, drawn by a couple of spank- 
ing bays; Mr. M'Fetridge, then the Collector 
at Pembina (Mr. Buchanan's best appointment 




INTEBNATIONAI. BOUNDAfiY POST. 



and worst removal), with a friend on the seat, 
drove a swift black pacer ; and four horsemen 
galloped along beside the two wagons ; Joe 
mounted on a superb stallion of English blood 
— " Fireaway" of name and stock. A dozen 



dogs followed our rattling wheels in full cry, 
barking and fighting. 

Three cheers as we passed the international 
boundary post. Its inscription, whatever it may 
have been, had been quite effaced by the hatch- 




PEMlilN.^ FORT. 




PEiUilNA, A>'1> MOUTU OF PEMBINA BIVEK. 



ets and arrows of Irdians, who used it instead 
of a colored boy and board for their target. 
The post was planted by Nicollet, we were told. 
Later obserrations have proved that it is 370 
yards south of the parallel of 49', the true 
lioundary line. 

It seemed less than that number of yards 
from it north to Pembina Fort. 

The lodges around the fort are those of In- 
dians, come in from their hunts to spend their 
proceeds or outfit anew ; some, perhajis, em- 
ployed by the Company. Half-breeds, however, 
are the ordinary ' ' Company's servants. " The 
long dwelling, where .several fomilies of them 
lived, was on our left as we passed under the 
high gateway of the fort. The store-houses and 
store were opposite. Facing the gate was the 
dwelling of the officers in charge — whitewashed 
without, scrupulously ne.it within. 

The Scotch sen-ants and half-ljreed interpret- 
ers of the Company were standing by the store- 
house ; the half-breed women and children were 
here and there about the area ; half a dozen 
Chippewas stood, with arms folded, seeing every 
motion of our party, and bearing every sound ; 
hundreds of furs were hanging against the 
fences ; and through the smudge-smoke issuing 
from the half-breeds' quarters we could catch 
glimpses of dark eyes and babies' hammocks 
a-swinging. 

The river, as may be seen in the cut, runs 
veiy near the fort, and is eighty y.irds wide, and 
twelve feet deep. In 1856 it rose thirty-five feet 
higlier, whereby the Red River Settlement and 
Pemliina were disastrously flooded, as twice in 
Lord Selkirk's time. These inundations are 
periodical, but occur at long intervals, and. 



probably, are much less serious now than for- 
merly, for old settlers say they can note, of late 
years, a very considerable enlargement of the 
channel, both of Red River and the Assini- 
boine. 

St. Vincent is the name of the town-site op- 
posite Pembina, in the northwestern corner of 
Minnesota exactly. It receives large annual 
accessions to its poll-list, just before election 
times, from over the river; but ordinarily its 
population consists of a dozen half-breeds, with 
dogs and mosquitoes, ad lib. 

One of the last evenings of our stay in Pem- 
bina we were invited to a half-breed dance over 
the river. We crossed in a crazy dug-out, of 
precarious equilibrium, and heard the jiggish 
fiddle before we reached the house. The half- 
breed who had rowed us over stopped at a lodge 
beside the ])ath to wake up two dark-skinned 
maidens and invite them to the dance. We 
caught a glimpse of them rising from their bed 
of robes, their faces lit up by pleasure at the 
news, as much as by tlie burning shred of cotton 
which floated on a basin of tallow on the ground 
in tlic middle of the lodge. Opening the door, 
and entering the log-house where the dance was 
briskly going ,on, we were greeted by a chorus 
of Ho! ho! bo! — the universal salutation of the 
aboriginal (total and semi). The fiddle did not 
cease its scraping, nor the heels of the dancers 
for a moment intermit their vibrant thumps on 
the plank floor. The scene was a wild one, 
though within four walls. A huge mud chim- 
ney, with an o])en fire-place at the right, a four- 
posted bed, with blankets only, in the further 
left-hand corner ; one or two chairs, which were 
politely handed to the strangers ; and all around 




BALL AT i'Elllil.SA. 



the room, sitting upon the floor as Indians and 
tailors sit, were half-lireed men and women, boys 
and girls — twenty or tliirty in all ; one mother, 
with bare breast, suckling her babe ; another 
busy in keeping her little one's toddling feet out 
of the pan of melted grease low on the mud 
hearth, with a cotton rag hanging over the edge, 
alight, which made snch dark shadows in among 
the groups in strange places, shadow and light 
alternating against the rafters and the roof as 
the figures of the dance changed. 

Jigs, reels, and quadrilles were danced in rap- 
id succession to the sound of that " dem'd hor- 
rid grinil," fresh dancers taking the place of 
those on the floor every two or three moments. 
The m6n were stripped to shirt, trowsers, belt, 
and moccasins ; and the women wore gowns 
which had no hoops. A vigorous shutlie from 
some thick-lipped young dancer, with his legs 
in flour-sacks, or a lively movement of some 
wrinkled hag, trying to renew the pleasures and 
activity of her youth, would call out a loud 
chorus of admiring "Ho! ho! ho!" and, fired 
by contagious enthusiasm, a black-eyed beauty 
in blue calico, and a strapping hois hrttle^ would 
jump up from the floor and outdo their prede- 
cessors in vigor and velocity — the lights and 
shadows chasing each other faster and faster 
over the rafters ; the flame, too, swaying wiltlly 
hither and thither ; and above the thumj/s of tlie 
dancers' heels, and the frequent ho's! and the 
loud laughter of the ring of squatter sovereigns, 
rose the monomaniac fiddle-shrieks, forced out 



of the trembling strings as if a devil was at the 
bow. 

Perhaps it is clear that here we saw the com- 
monalty. The next night Joe Rolette gave a 
dance in his house, and here we saw the aris- 
tocracy of Pembina. There was the same en- 
thusiasm, but less license ; a better fiddle and 
the fiddler better ; and more decorous dancing. 
Joe's little boy of eleven, home from his school 
at the Settlement, and his father-in-law, of near 
seventy, were the best of the dancers. The lat- 
ter was as tireless as if his aged limbs had lost 
no strength by exposure to all weathers and la- 
bor, as a hunter and voyageur, for a long life- 
time ; and little Joe had e.xtra double-shuffles, 
and intricate steps, and miraculously lively 
movements, which made his mother and little 
cousins very proud of him. 

In the intervals of the dance Madame Gan- 
grais, one of Joe's lady cousins, sang some wild 
French ballads and a Catholic hymn. Those 
of our boys who were singers responded with a 
few choruses — negro melodies, of course. 

Monday week after our arrival in Pembina 
we left for St. Joseph — a place seven railee 
south of latitude 49'% about thirty miles west 
of Pembina, and likewise on Pembina River, 
which stream, west of St. Joseph (or St. Jo, as 
it is universally called) runs (according to Cap- 
tain Palisser) almost entirely in British terri- 
tory. Along the stream from its mouth to the 
lakes we afterward saw, in which it takes its 
rise, a belt of prairie on either side, varying in 




<--•■■ 



m^ 






6TaAWIi£UblliB. 



width, and covered witli trees— oak, elm, poplar, 
and birch the i>rincii)al varieties. Our road 
was over the ojjen jirairic, two or three miles 
north of the belt of timber, touching it here and 
there at the larger bends. 

The wonder of this day's travel was the acres 
and acres of strawberries tlirongh wliicli the 
trail passed. Beds of them, so ttiick tliat kneel- 
ing any where you could fill a liat full without 
more than turning around ; large, ripe, luscious 
strawberries, tarter than those in our gardens, 
whose size has been increased at the expense of 
a riclmess of flavor. The wheels crushed clumps 
if them, and were reddened like the wjjeels of 
Juggernaut. Again and again we were temjit- 
ed out of our saddles by some bed of thicker and 
finer berries than that wo had just left the jMiiit 
of our knees on — gluttonous 6trawberr}'-bibbers 
every one of us ! When we could eat no more 
from the vines, we filled our hats full, which were 
devoured in the saddle as soon as a few mo- 
ments' srjuare trotting had made a place for 
new draughts of their red, ripe, pulpy delieious- 
ness. 

Some ate in silence, and some in thankful- 
ness, and some in wonder; and Joseph mur- 
mured between every hatful the praise — of An- 
drew Fuller, was it? — "Doubtless God might 
have made a better berry than the strawberry, 
but doubtless God never did." 

Half a dozen of us stofiped, about noon, at 
the farm of Charles Rottineau, which is on a 
bend of the river, nineteen or twenty miles from 
Pembina. Curet need not have been ashamed 
of the iahhi d'lu'ite. 

In the last half of the afternoon we drove on 
to St. Josejih, galloping down one of its grassy 
streets as the sun was sinking behind I'cmbina 
Mountain, which fills the western horizon. 

The city was deserted ; its one hundred houses 
were nearly all shut and barred, their accustomed 
inmates gone to the summer bufialo-hunt. A 
score or so of half-breeds, very young, or very 
old, or lame, most of them, gathered around our 
camj)-fire ; but of the hundreds whom we saw- 



on our return journey there were now no signs. 
Many that were unable to accompany the bri- 
gade to the ])lains had moved away from their 
homes in St. Joseph, and lived in lodges near 
Forts Garry and rembiua, for fear of the hostile 
Sioux. 

The houses were nearly all of hewn logs, mud- 
dcd in the chinks, generally one luit sometimes 
two stories in height, with a single chimney. 
Mr. N. W. Kittson has his large trading-house 
inclosed within a high stockiide; the nunneiy 
and church are larger buildings than the aver- 
age ; and one or two are frame-houses, who.se 
boards came from the saw-mill, which adjoins 
the church, and was built by its thrifty priest; 
but, with these exceptions, the houses are veri- 
much alike. 

St. Jo is a place of considerable present and 
greater prospective importance. It is on our 
frontier, the best of all sites for a much-needed 
frontier fort, in the midst of a rich agricultural 
countr)-, adjoining the great settlement of North- 
western Hriiish America, and is near the water- 
course which leads into our own teiTitory, and 
insures to our benefit somewhat of the riches 
of the great Northwestern areas, both now and 
when the advancing tide of settlements shall 
have swept over the great valleys and left them 
populous. 

Since ISoO the Sioux have stolen from the 
I<;oplc of St. Jo more than four hundred horses, 
many of them buffalo-runners, commanding from 
one to three hundred dollars each, and often the 
only jiroperty and sole means of support which 
their owners had. In the same time a still larg-^ 
er number of horned cattle have been stolen. 
Worse than all, every year has seen some deaths 
at the hands of the Sioux. In the absence of 
the hunters the Indian lurks about the place, 
shooting and scalping, sometimes in open day- 
light, those who stray away from the principal 
streets, and at night firing into windows heed- 
lessly left unshuttered, or falling npon some 
helpless man or woman who has ventured to 
cross the field to a ncighlrar's house. 



At times the half-breeds have taken their 

wrongs into their own hands, and have done 
their best to riglit them. lu the occasional bat- 
tles which have occurred they have exhibited a 
superior bravery and skill, one of their number 
being reckoned the equal of about half a dozen 
of any Indian tribe. They are the best of horse- 
men. The Sioux must dismount to fire with 
accuracy. A half-breed, from long practice in 
the buftalo hunts, will fire from horseback at full 
gallop without even taking a sight along the bar- 
rel, and that, too, with great rapidity and dead- 
ly effect, delivering half a dozen shots, before, 
behind, and on either side of him, while his 
horse is making a flying circuit within gun-shot 
distance of a Sioux war-jiarty. 

When St. Jo was laid out by the original set- 
tlers, each man was allotted not merely a por- 
tion of land sufficient for house and garden with- 
in the limits of the city, but also a farm fronting 
on tlie Pembina River, and therefore combining 
plenty of timber witli the rich prairie land. Few 
of these farms, however, are cultivated. The 
people of St. Jo, like tlie French half-ljreeds of 
Red River, are buffiilo-hunters by profession. 

In the early spring their work begins. Before 
the snow is off the ground those who are intend- 
ing to go out in tjie first summer hunts begin to 
look about after their horses and carts and cart- 
oxen. If they have no horses, they buy or hire 
them. If they have no carts, they set to work 
to make them — quisque su(B cartcE faher est. 
There are no mechanics among them. Such 
things as they can not buy of the English or 
American traders they make for themselves or 
go without ; so that nearly every able-bodied man 
is a chair-maker, house-builder, blacksmith, or 



wagon-maker, as occasion demands. These 
carts thus made are, nevertheless, all of one pat- 
tern, and enough alike to have been machine- 
work. "Pembina buggy" is the honorary title 
which they receive from those who despair of 
otiierwise making their jolts endurable — as one 
might call the stink-weed, rose. A wooden cart 
on two wheels is the simplest description of them. 
Wooden they are to the remotest parts. Leath- 
er linch-pins are not orthodox; and if the heresy 
of iron boxes has to any extent prevailed, it is 
only because imported from St. Paul. The fel- 
loes are wide and never tired. The bids is huge, 
and sometimes indulged with a girdle of raw 
buffalo hide, nailed on when wet and shiiuking 
tight. There is a neat fence high as the wheel 
on each side of the cart body, and the wheels 
themselves are large and enormously dished. 
For from five to ten dollars apiece you may buy 
any number of these carts, so cheaj) is labor. 
Twelve hundred jiounds can be piled into them 
on good roads ; and even where there is a slough 
at every half-mile, and a corduroy road the rest 
of the w.ay, they cany seven hundred jiounds 
without often breaking. The draught animals 
are o.xen almost exclusively, and these have har- 
nesses of raw hides, of a primitive cut and of an 
infinite endurance. With as many carts as he 
' can afford, and at least one fast buffalo-horse, 
with a gun of the Northwest pattern (price 48 
wholes.ale), and a full powder-horn and shot- 
pouch, the hunter is prepared to go to the plains. 
But he never goes alone. He and his friends 
and neighbors make up a brigade — large or small, 
it is called a brigade ; and the brigade is a trav- 
eling town sometimes' — men and women, horses, 
oxen, dogs, and carts, tents, lodges, frying-pans, 




=?«;;' 
,i*> 




BT. JOSEm, FROM ^EiLlil^■A MOUNTAIN. 



and all other housekeeping utensils that are port- 
able, traveling together. 

In last summer's hunt, for example, there 
were, in one brigade alone, 400 men carrying 
arms, 800 women and children, 800 horses, 500 
oxen, 1000 carts, about 200 train-dogs, and as 
many more mongrel curs. The wants of these 
people are simple and few, and about as easily 
supplied on the prairie as in the settlements. 
As for the animals, herbivorous, they live on 
grass and water ; carnivorous, they live on meat 
and water. The brigade desen'es the name of a 
traveling community for another reason. They 
subject themselves to a code of laws on the prai- 
rie even moi'e rigid than those in force at home. 
The latter end of June is the time of starting for 
the summer hunt, of August for the fall hunt. 

A large camp of half-breeds on their way to 
the plains is a sight to be seen. Their dress is 
picturesque. Men and women both wear moc- 
casins worked with gaudy beads. The men's 
trowsers are generally of corduroy or Canada 
blue, and their coats of the Canadian pattern, 
witli large brass buttons, and a hood hanging 
between the shoulders. A jaunty cap surmounts 
the head, often of blue cloth, but sometimes of 
an otter or badger skin ; and, whether with the 
coat or without it, a gay sash is always worn 
around the waist, the bright tassels hanging down 
the left hip. Into this are thrust the biiffi^lo- 
knife behind, and the fire-l)ag at the right side. 

Although it was not until tlie writer's return, 
with two friends and a couple of half-breed guides 
and servants, by Turtle Mount and Devil's Lake, 
that he passed through the great buffalo ranges 
where the brigades always liunt, it is better to 
give the particulars of one of their chases, the 
pemmican making, etc., in this connection than 
to defer it to its proper chronological place. 

Women, boys, and the supernumeraries of the 
brigade drive the. carts, each one taking charge 
of two or three, and passing his or her time in 
belaboring the forward ox, and yelling to the 
hinder ones as they lag in the march. The 
hunters are mounted on fine horses, and relieve 
the tedium of the slow, wearisome travel with 
an occasional scamper after a badger seen scram- 
bling to his hole ; or a shot at a gray wolf, dis- 
turbed in his lurking-place in tlio long rushes of 
some deep marsh through whicli the train passes. 
Some of the hunters keep at a considerable dis- 
tance from the train, on the look-out for Ijuftalo 
and signs of hostile Indians. If the latter are 
near, the train divides into three sections, and 
travel in ))arallel lines. 

The lowering and raising of the flag on the 
foremost cart is the sign to halt or start. At 
night they gather in a circle called a corral, 
where the carts are ranged side by side, with the 
shafts turned 4owai-d the centre of the circle, 
wliere the lodges and tents are raised, and the 
camp-fires made. The drudgery of the camp is 
performed by the half-breed women. Wlien the 
train is in motion every sejjarate wheel on every 
cart has its peculiar shriek. lu camp these are 



silent ; but Babel is continued by all voices, each 
with its peculiar shrillness or vehemence of lan- 
guage, by the barkings of all tlic dogs, comjiass- 
ing every chromatic of the canine gamut, by the 
lowing of tlie oxen and the whinnying of horses, 
rolling and kicking up their heels in the grass. 
But in the midst of it all matters are going on, 
fires lighted, water boiling, potatoes cooking, 
pemmican frying, and bread baking ; and before 
sunset sujjper is ready in most of the messes. 
After sup])er the pipe. 

As the twiliglit deepens into dark, all the an- 
imals are brought into the inclosure made by the 
carts, and picketed there, the buffalo-runners re- 
ceiving es])ecial care ; and the watch begins to 
control the camp. Numbers linger about the 
camp-fii-es, smoking and telling stories of buftiilo- 
hunts, or listening to some older man as he re- 
counts the early distresses of the colonists, the 
wars of the Northwest and Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany, the long journey to Prairie du Chien for 
food and seeds, or some attack of the Sioux upon 
the hunters in a previous year. But before the 
light has entirely died out in the western sky all 
are wrapped in their blankets or robes — the sweet 
odor of kinnic-kinnic lingering in the air — and 
the low voices of the watchmen are interrupted 
only by the long bowlings of distant wolves — 
long and exultant, sometimes, as if conscious 
that they are about to begin their annual feast 
upon the carcasses of buffalo. 

Early in the morning, before sunrise, in the 
cold gray dawn, dew dabbling every spear of 
grass, the flags are raised, and at the sign, and 
sound of the horn sleepers rouse, the tents and 
lodges are struck by the women, the oxen har- 
nessed into the carts and horses saddled by the 
men. The horn again sounds and the carts fall 
into line, and the hunters mount and the train 
is in motion. After about two hours of brisk 
travel the train halts an hour and a half for 
breakfast, and then pushes on again till the or- 
der is given to halt for dinner. 

During the early part of the day which is to 
be described, no large herds had been seen ; but 
all were in anxious expectation of falling in with 
one before the day ended, so fretiuent were the 
signs of their presence in the numerous trails — 
the fresh dung and the trampled grass in all the 
marshes looking like innumerable heaps of green 
jackstraws. 

Just as the leader was sounding the horn 
which was the order to " catch up tlie horses," a 
rider was seen galloping at full sjieed down the 
hither side of a hill by wliicli he had been liid 
from sight on the rolling prairie. All knew the 
message he had to bring before hearing it from 
his lips. He had seen a herd of hundreds stead- 
ily pushing their way over the [irairie toward the 
northeast, just beyond a high ridge which was the 
limit of sight in the direction the brigade was then 
traveling — nearly due south. Tlie oxen tliat had 
been harnessed were again loosed, all the buft'alo- 
runners saddled, and every hunter eagerly ex- 
amined his gun and ammunition. The horses 
too knew what was in the wind ; and the more 



higli-spirited ones among them, wliich had been 
trained to the hunt, stood shivering witli excite- 
ment, snuffing tlie air, and pawing the ground 
with their lioofs, needing a man's strength to 
hold them in. All the able-liodied men were 
speedily armed and accoutred, their superfluous 
clothing thrown off, sashes tied tighter, and 
girths buckled a hole or two higher, and, in 
less than five minutes from the time tlie rider 
had got to camp, the leader liad given the order 
to advance, and more than three hundred horse- 
men were steadily trotting southward in the di- 
rection of tlie herd. In a few moments they had 
reached a ])oint where the ground began to rise 
gently to the height of the low ridge on the top 
of which tlity would be visible to the herd. Here 
all drew rein, while the leader, with one or two 
of the older hunters, dismounted and crept along 
up the slope to reconnoitre, obsen-e the progress 
of the herd and the lay of the land, in order to de- 
termine from which direction the charge had bet- 
ter be made. There was little time to be lost ; 
the buft'alo were already o])posite the hunters, 
and the old bulls ahead might, at any moment, 
take a trail leading over the ridge and in full 
sight of the train. A moment's glance told ex- 
perienced eyes, peering through the tops of the 
long green grass, that the ground toward which 
they were moving was a rolling prairie with ab- 
rupt ascents and descents, and therefore full of 
badger-holes, dangerous alike to the horse and 
his rider, while the ground which they had just 
passed over was very nearly level, with here and 
there a marsh, and fenced in, so to speak, by the 
stream which ran hither and thither, and wound 
around by tlie dinner camp-ground. Hastening 
down the slopie and remounting their horses, a 
few quick, low words from the leader explained 
the order of the charge. A dozen or more of 
the fleetest runners were sent to the westward 
around the ridge to head the herd and start 
them back. The rest of the hunters gathered 
under its edge arrectis auribus. The ruse was 
successful. The dozen hunters coming boldly 
into sight directly in their path, and spreading 
out slowly to the right and left without chasing 
them, and the favorable nature of the ground, 
making it harder for them to go to the one side 
or the other than backward, turned them almost 
in their tracks. The herd was not so large but 
that ven' many of the buffaloes could see the 
hunters. The sage and long-bearded veterans 
who had led them stopped, w-re crowded ahead 
a few yards by the pressure of those behind, and 
then all were huddling together, cows and calves 
in the centre, and the bnlls crowding around, 
until the leaders broke through and led off at a 
steady gallop on the back track. This was the 
critical moment. The dozen hunters shouted at 
the tops of their lungs, and settled into a steady 
gallop on their trail. The three hundred and 
fifty horsemen came flying over tlie ridge and 
down its slope in full pursuit, and in front of 
them all, not a quarter of a mile away, a herd 
of near a thousand buflTaloes in headlong flight, 
tails out. Leads down, and nostrils red and flar- 



ing. For the first few hundred j-ards the chase was 
"nip and tuck." The buffaloes were doing their 
best possible, as they always can at the beginning 
of a chase, and the horses had not so good ground, 
and were hardly settled down to their work. But 
soon the tremendous strides of tlie buffalo-run- 
ners began to tell in the chase, and the hea\y 
headlong and forehanded leap of the buffalo to 
grow just perceptibly slacker. One after an- 
other the swiftest of the runners caught up to 
the herd, and soon hunters and hunted were one 
indistinguishable mass thundQiing over the plain. 
The gieen sward is torn up, clouds of dust arise, 
swift shots like volleys of musketrv' buffet the 
air, the hunters fly along with loosened rein, 
trusting to their horses to clear the badger holes 
that here and there break the ground, and to 
keep their own flanks and the rider's legs from 
the horns of the buffaloes by whom they must 
pass to get alongside the fat and swifter cow 
singled out for prey. And still they keep 
up this tremendous gait, flying buffalo and pur- 
suing horsemen. As fast as one fires he draws 
the ]ilug of his powder-horn with his teeth, , 
pours in a hasty charge, takes one from his 
mouthful of wet bullets and drops it without 
wadding or rammer upon the powder, settles it 
with a blow against the saddle, keeps the muzzle 
lifted till he is close to his game, then lowers 
and fires in the same instant without an aim, 
the muzzle of the gun often grazing the shaggy 
monster's side ; then leaning off, his hor.se wheels 
away, and loading as he flies, he spurs on in 
chase of another, and another, and another ; and 
in like manner the three hundred of them. One 
after one the buffaloes lagged behind, staggered, 
and fell, at first singly and then by scores, till in 
a few moments the whole herd was slain save 
only a few old bulls not worth the killing, which 
were suffered to gallop safely away. One after 
one the hunters drew rein, and dismounting from 
their drenched horses, walked back through the 
heaps of dead bufl'alo and the puddles of blood, 
singling out of the hundreds dead with unening 
certainty the ones they had shot. Not a dispute 
arose among the hunters as to the ownership of 
any buffalo killed. To a novice in the hunt 
they all looked alike, differenced only by size 
and sex, and the plain on which all were lying 
was in each square rod the fac-simile of even.' 
other square. The novices had thrown on their 
killed a sash or coat or knife-sheath ; but the best 
huntere had no need of this. To their keen 
eyes no two rods were alike, and they could trace 
their course as easily as if only four and not 
thousands of hoofs had torn the plain. 

The carts driven by the women come up, 
knives are drawn, and with marvelous dexterity 
the shaggj' skins are stripped off, the great, 
bloody frame divided, huge bones and quivering 
flesh, all c'lt into ]jieces of portable size, the 
carts loaded, and by sunset all are on their way 
to camp. 

At St. Jo all our plans underwent a change. 
It became clear that the leader ,f the expedition 



could never justify the " lofty and high sounding i pass that, with his necessities and his wheedling, 
phrases of his manifesto," and that it was even ' he obtained more than his wages before he began 
douljtfiil if wc shtjuld be able to get through the his work. This sort of credit system, liowevcr, 
mountains before snow fall, to say nothing of re- is usu#l among the h:ilf-brceds. Like the In- 
turning overland. One of the scientific gentle- dians they |/ass their lives in paying their debts, 
men returned to St. Paul from St. Jo by private and li.ivc to be trusted with the nicans of enabling 
conveyance. Another left the expedition at the them to do it. 



same place, preferring to go to the Selkirk Settle- 
ment. There remained only our one geologist 
and botanist to represent science, the through 
passengers for Fraser l{iver, the leader, and Jo- 



Michelle Klein, our faithful gtiideand cook, was 
a better than average specimen of the half-breed. 
More than fifty years old, he was yet as active as 
a boy, and liglit-heartcd as a girl. By virtne of 



seph and I. Our horses were growing lean, ex- those qualities which are always rare in anv 
„_. ._i.. . u , ._ . . ,. ,, ' party of men, early in the morning, during rain- 

storms or when cattle have strayed, he became a 
kind of jirivilegcd character, was ]jemiitted t<i 
joke with all, and the one to wliom all jokes 
were addressed, not worth an English coat but 
put in tattered French. lie had lived his pres- 
ent life of voyagcur, hunter, guide, etc., for thirty 
or forty years, and was accomplished in it. He 
had been a guide in the passes of the Rocky 
Mountains, north of the Kootonais I'ass, for 
twelve years, and his knowledge of that region, 
and of the' valley of Fraser Hiver, and of the 
Saskatchewan, and Assiniboine was his capital. 
Poplar groves, low sand-hills, and marshes, which 
the ordinary observer seems to see the duplicates 
of a thousand times in one month's travel, were 
to him as separate and distinct as if the whole 
country had been majjped with minute topog- 
raphy. He never failed to notice the tracks 
over barren ]ilaces that we crossed, buffalo, elk, 
antelope, or human footprints; and the breath 
of smoke beyond the farthest puqile hills, light 
and evanescent as any summer cloud, he would 
at once distinguish, camp-fire, or ]jrairie-fire. A 
good shot, as it was well for one to be who had 
gone many a month with only a rifle and blanket 
between him and every fatal possibility, lie didn't 
mind a ducking for a small bird on the coldest 
day. lie knew the times and seasons for all 
the game in the valleys or on the prairie. In 
nothing more than his views of astronomy did 
he show how completely the people of Hed Kiver 
have been shut out from the rest of the world. 
Indeed he represented not only the manners and 
customs of more than half a century ago, hut for 
his theorj' of the heavens and earth he went be- 
hind Keider. He believed that the sun revolves 
around the earth as it appears to do ; conceived 
the earth as one great plain, this side the only 
one buttered with a population, and merrily 
laughed at the idea of going westward till the 
west is east and returning so to the place of be- 
ginning. His arguments were those of the Pope 



cepting only tough, lazy, imperturbable Van 
Rice. Joseph parted with tears from Lady 
Mary, exchanging her for a light Indian pony, 
to whose education he henceforth devoted all his 
leisure. We obtained at St. Jo a half-breed at- 
tendant, determining to be the masters of our 
own movements, and jilanning to go as far as 
possible with the expedition, and return through 
the buffalo-ranges and by IJcvil's Lake, .nnd the 
Siou.x country to I'embina, by the first of Sep- 
tember, ending our tour with a visit to the Sel- 
kirk Settlement, and an overland journey thence, 
southwest, to Crow Wing and home. This we 
did. 

" Joe" was the patronymic of our French half- 
breed attendant ; by no means Saint Joe. Tall, 
muscular, with long black hair and the mandililes 
of an alligator, he yet walked in a lame, clumsy 
way, and wore shoes instead of moccasins. Both 
his feet had been frozen, and of one all the toes, 
and of the other half the metacarpal bones also, 
had been amjiutated. He was hunting buffalo 
with a dog-train, the dogs ran away and left him 
alone in the snow, where for ten days he lived, 
and nights he slept, without food by d.ay or 
blankets by night : on the last day rescued by 
Indians, who found him insensible and nearly 
frozen to death. His work was only to take 
care of our horses and mules, fetch wood and 
water, help the cook, and drive the carts. A 
sinister look in the eye was the index to the 
rascally jjart of him. For three or four days he 
was the best of new brooms ; from that time forth 
he began to shirk his work, finally even sham- 
ming crazy and playing the deuce with our time 
and attention, till we had driven him out of his 
lunacy into a genuine but ignominious stupidity 
equally fatal to our interests. It was more than 
the fellow was worth to cart his one hundred and 
seventy pounds along with us. But of all this 
we could suspect nothing when we hired hirn — so 
polite was the rascal, so handy at mending an 
old cart which had nonplused our metroj/olitan 



fingers, so guileless in his speech. We hired and thepersecutorsof Galileo. The water would 
him for, I forget how much, a month, and the j droji out of the rivers and lakes and sea if they 
next moniing after the bargain was struck be- were turned the upside down, and as for the im' 



gan to pay for the whistle. He must have pcm- 
mican, and flour, and tea to leave with his wife, 
who was soon to be confined, and then some 
cloth for his shirts, and then a pair of shoes, and 
then would "my master" jdcasc to give .loe a 
sovereign to buy wine for his poor wife, and 
" my master" wouldn't think that Joe could 
leave no money with his wife ; and so it came to 



mensc plain on which we live, why, it rests on 
an elephant, and the elephant stands on the back 
of a tortoise, and the tortoise on a snake, and 
the snake has a kink in his convolutions which 
gives him a purchase whereby he holds up all. 

From St. Jo our course was northwest, a di- 
rection which led us along over the prairie at the 
foot of Pembina Mountain for two days and then 



r. 



I 



across it. Pembina Mountain is 210 feet high. 
In Cict it is no mountain at all, nor yet a hill, 
but only a terrace of table-land, the ancient 
shore of a great body of water which once filled 
the whole of the Eed River Valley. The sum- 
mit is quite level, and extends so for five miles 
westward, to another terrace level with the bufialo 
plains which stretch on to the Missouri. The 
same terrace may be traced northward, and south 
to the high land near the head of the Sheyenne 



A 



iw 



i, s 





Eiver and Devil's Lake. Of the prairie country 
beyond, and of the Red Kiver generally, our ob- 
senations confirmed the truth of Owen's state- 
ment, that the limestones of the Eed Eiver form 
the basis of a large portion of it. They are 
highly magnesian, having 17 to 40 per cent, of 
alkaline earth. 

I Another of these Nature's steps from a lower 
to a higher level may be traced from Turtlc 
Mount on the 49th jiarallel to the banks of 
Swan Eiver, in 52' 30', and even around to ' 
Basqua Hill, says Sir George Simpson, on the 
waters of the lower Saskatchewan. Like Pem- 
bina Mountain, this ridge, whose sand-hills we 
afterward crossed, was once the shore of a vast 
inland sea. %\'hen its height determined the 
boundary of the great body of waters, not only 
the Eed Eiver Valley, but also Lakes Winnipeg, 
Manitoba, and Winnipegoos, with many of their 
feeders, were themselves ingulfed. The largest 
of the three great fragments of the primeval sheet 
of waters, viz.. Lake Winnipeg, still continues 
to retire from its western side and to encroach 
on its eastern bank. 

Our first camping-place was in a cluster of 
beautiful oak groves, from which, at four or five 
miles' distance, we had this view of the Pembina 
Mountain plateau. 

Here we began a more careful watch. At 
night the man on guard pat out the camp-fires 
as soon as all had retired, allowed the smudges 
to smoke but not blaze, lit his p)]»e behind his 
hat, and, in short, " kept shady." But even 
danger in time became commonplace. 

Crossing the Pembina Motmtain, the views of dis- 
tant prairies, lakes, streams, woods, the glimpses 
which we caught of the nearer valleys, and the 
brooks which ran down them through sunny and 
shady places, an abrupt wild cliff, with here and 
there granite and limestone boulders tumbled 
about on clayey shale, tinged with iron like the 
redness of the autumn leaves, the richness of the 
green grass, the strength and youth of the green 
leaves, filled the day with beauty. 

Of every day the beginning was a sunrise and 
the ending a sunset, with the whole round arch 
of heaven for the great display. Shut up in 
cities we never see all their beauty, the wonder 
of every new day, and the miracle of the closing 
night. Looking out of a window, or down a 
street, we catch at the end of the ^•ista a framed 
glimpse of brilliant coloring, but the whole large 
effect in the wide circle of the heavens we utterly 
miss; the more delicate but not less beautiful 
change of colors behind, on either side and over- 
head ; the grand tidal flow of light descending or 
of shade arising in the horizon opposite the sun : 
the infinitely various tinting of its clouds, which 
no succeeding second leaves the same ; its tender 
neutral tints, the cool grays, and the deeper blue ; 
and over all, perhaps, as the sun goes down, a 
flaming dome of red. 

The next day, at high noon, we scared up our 
first elk. He saw us when we were half a mile 
away, and rtished from the poplar grove which 
we were heading for to a more distant one at a 



rate settinK our weary horse-flesh at defiance. 
But the jirospect of killing an elk was no more 
to be resisted than tlic glimpse of office flashed 
upon a hopeless nominee ; and so half a dozen of 
us capped our rillcs and cantered along in the 
track of his great leaps, faintly hoping to sur- 
round him in some of the poplar clumps, till we 
saw him shake his antlers proudly and plunge 
into an alder swamp two or three miles away, 
after which we cantered back again. That night 
our mosquito and gnat miseries culminated. 
Alkaline water in the swamps by which we had 
camped ruined the flavor of our tea, and gave all 
our horses and mules what Joseph called "an 
elementary canal enlargement." 

Speaking of mules reminds me of a scnn7 
trick my mule played me in return for consid- 
erate kindness. One day I noticed that Mule's 
shoulder was getting sore, and therefore put Ijan 
Rice in the cart and saddled his successor. Out 
of respect to a fraternal affection, rare among 
human brutes, I refrain from mentioning his in- 
disposition to go before or remain far beljind the 
train. Sixty musical clefs would not hold in 
their bars the notes of his bellowing. But pres- 
ently strawberries, red and ripe, tempted me off 
his bac;;. Essaying to remount Mule, into 
whom must have transmigrated the crazy soul 
of some defunct geometer, he suddenly seemed 
to behold in me his centre, conceived himself a 
radius, and projxjsed to pass the rest of his life in 
describing a complimentary circumference, his 
tail doing the tangents. WHiirling away a half 
hour thus, my patience became Rarey-fied, and I 
made a desperate leap for his back, caught one toe 



m the stirrup, and so began a half-mile gallop, 
outdoing circus Mazcjipas. In time, this became 
tedious, and I jumiied off, lighting on all-fours, 
and happily ),reseriing the integrity of mv meer- 
schaum, mother Earth receiving me in her green 
lap. 

No one saw my mishap ; but I trudged along 
quietly after the vanishing ass, and in an hour 
or two overtook the train and him. Experience 
had made me wiser. Reviring forgotten high- 
bar gymnastics, I got him where he could not 
turn, and leaped square into the saddle. Then, 
for six or eight miles, siiurs, bit, and I fought 
Mule, his heels and his liees, and helped him 
conquer them. Poor brute ! on our return he 
fell sick. We dragged him along behind the 
cart for a day or two, and since he got no better, 
but only worse, and could hardly walk, we left 
him on the open jirairie, cutting a heap of green 
grass for his bed and board, clipping his ear for 
a property-mark, and praying that the wolves 
might spare him. Good old mule! you sen-ed 
us well, and I couldn't help choking at the throat 
as I caught the last glimpse of your long neck 
stretched out as you lay there, "loth to believe 
that we would desert you. If the " stem reader" 
derides my grief, O dead ass, you shall not 
meet again ! Oh for the Mustang Horse Lini- 
ment that might have spared us all ! 

I forgot to say that we used to rest in camp 
one day in seven, Sunday the day, as often as was 
possible. Then our trowsers and morals were 
mended, or, at least, patched up to ajipear a lit- 
tle better, the emigrants greased afresh their cart- 
wheels and their good resolutions, and washed 




rCAlBIE nUE. 







^ a 



MOUSE BIYEE. 



away their sweat in the nearest river or lake. 
The man of science divided his time between 
Paul's Epistles and the compound microscope, 
and gave us lectures from the latter, which helped 
our exegesis of the former, giving us wiser eyes 
to see the wonderful works of God. Another 
polished the hand mirror in which he was accus- 
tomed to view, in his opinion, the best specimen 
of the " noblest work." Joseph and I indulged 
in a theological disputation, and all of us ended 
the day generally by gathering about the camp- 
tire after supjier and singing Old Hundred, Ba- 
lerma, Dundee, Ward, and other tunes of that 
sort. 

On the first of August we crossed a valley 
called by Michelle, our guide, La Belle Vallee. 
Its appearance was like the deserted channel of 
a beautiful river, such as the Ujiper Mississippi 
would be if its waters had passed away and seas 
of long green grass filled their place. 

Mounil Prairie, a plain dotted here and there 
with mounds too few to make a rolling prairie of 
it, and with one regular cone-shaped and higher 
mound in the centre, giving it its name, was just 
ijeyond La Belle Valli'e. The next day, from 
the last of a range of high hills, to which Joseph 
and I gallo]ped, away from the train, we caught 



sight, for the first time, of the faint blue line iu 
tlie northern horizon which marked the course 
of the Assiuiboine. At the west wore the range 
of low hills beyond which, said Michelle, was 
the Mouse River. Between were inniunerable 
lakes — some salt and some fresh — shallow ones 
fringed with green or black rushes, and deep 
ones wooded to the banks, with dark shadows 
underneath, or surrounded by green slopes, and 
reflecting the whole blue of heaven. Away to 
the right was a column of smoke, where the care- 
less dropping of a match had set the ]irftiric on 
fire. Mouse River ran along within a mile of 
our camping-ground that night; and the next 
morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Joscj'li 
and I hun'ied on to its banks. 

There was every variety of color in the beau- 
tiful landscape which met our eyes ; brillianl 
prairie flowers in the foreground, or gi-owiug iu 
the de'bris tumbled down from tlie blutf on whidi 
we sat. The trees, down upon whose tops wc 
looked — as flying birds see forests — the rushes 
and ranker gi-ass near the river's margin, the 
exquisite cool grays of the sandy beach defined 
in such graceful curves by the brilliant blue re- 
flected from the water, the thick verdurous under- 
brush, here and there sentineled bv .statclv trees, 



which CDvcrcd the lil^iiii heyomi the river ; the 
lisiiter ^reen upon the lou;^ level nieailow seen 
;it the ri),'lit (if the river in tlie sl<eti,'h, with troojis 
of shadows cliasing each otiicr over its surface ; 
and far beyond — miles away — the dark l)rown 
of the opposite cliffs, and the faint, hazy blue of 
hills in the extreniest distance. 

As I sat, trying to put on paper the l)riefi;st 
outline memoranda to recall this sjilendid land- 
scape, a large gray eagle came sailing along the 
air, and hovered high above us. 1 fired with my 
rifle and hit him, knocking out a few tail-feathers; 
but not fatally, for he only tumbled, fluttering 
three or four times his own wing-spread, and 
then, as if more scared than inirt, recovered him- 
self and flew of}" into upper air. Al'terward we 
saw him hanging over the river ; a strong breeze 
was blowing, but, without an a]i]iarent stroke of 
his pinions, lie kept himself steadily poised and 
balanced in the same sjiot, head bent looking 
downward, and body level. 

Here, too, after a long chase and considerable 
"circumvention," wc shot at the first antelopes 
seen by ns. Their quick, long juni]is took them 
out of rifle-range too soon to give us a second 
chance. 



I These were our most delightful days. The 
nights were pleasantly cool, and we slept well 
des]iite the mosquitoes. The days were full of 
enjoyment, each one rewarding our labor of 
travel with some new lieauty af landscape or of 
sky, some hidden beauty under our feet. The 
horses jogged comfortably along, their hoofs now 
and then crushing heaps of cacti, which remind- 
ed us of Southern deserts and torrid heats, the 
comparison cooling us ; or the cart-wheels, as 
we drove through and among the clumps of white 
poplar and spotted alder, sinking into the elastic 
caqiet of running cedar and trailing aibutu.s. 
In such places .Joseph and I dismounted as quick- 
ly as if the odorous caqiet was from the loom 
which wove the carpet of the Arabian I'riuce; 
and there — hapjiy as jjrinces ought to lie, but nev- 
er are — we whiled away the summer afternoons 
till long shadows warned us to hurry on after 
the train, Joseph reading Tennyson and Ur}'ant, 
whom he carried in blue and gold ; the tones of 
his voice or the scratch of my jicncil never fright- 
ening the trustful brown-birds tliat hopped about 
us, not afraid sometimes to skip on an extended 
foot or arm, where they stood and chirped and 
cocked their tiny heads this way and that, but 





luivr KLi.lul:. 



never whispered the wise things and the secrets 
which they miglit have told. Sand-hill cranes — 
huge birds, delicious to eat, and worth creeping 
a hundred rods to shoot — would start from many 
hollows as we came up over the nearest hill, and 
we could see their ungainly majesties putting on 
airs and stalking about on the top of distant 
sand-hills, taking care to fly before we were 
within rifle-shot, and mocking us with their 
clanging cry till their white, van-like wings were 
faint white specks in the distant air. 

Monday, the Sth of August, we camped near 
j a knoll whence the Assiniboine and the tribu- 
I taries of Qu'Appelle River were both visible. 
Fort EUice, to which we were journeying, was 
j two or three miles this side of the junction of 
' these two rivers. Onr leader had persisted that 
we were going too tar north to strike the fort ; 
and a few days before had become so convinced 
that his own practiced ignorance was superior 
to the guide's uneducated knowledge (for Mi- 
chelle had been so stupid as to travel all over the 
country without any compass save the sun in 
bright days, and the compass-weed in cloudy 
ones), that he had ordered our line of direction 
' to be changed more to the west. As a conse- 
1 queuce, the next day we had to return to the 
northeast — losing one or two days' travel — to 
strike the fort ; and found, when there, that the 
scape-graces heretofore mentioned, who had trav- 
eled over the two sides of the right-angled trian- 
gle whose hypothenuse we described, had passed 
two or three days before — though, to be sure, we 
had had science and a fearful amount of expe- 
rience in our aid; and they had stupidly fol- 
lowed their noses and the advice of those' who, 
like Michelle, had been over the road. 

Early the next morning we struck the hunt- 
ers' trail from Fort EUice (S.W.) to Moosehead 
Mountain, and gallojied our horses in its ruts for 
miles in a frenzy of delight. It was the road 
which led to London and Paris and New York, 
and all the centres of civilization and wealth and 
knowledge in the world. For days and days we 
had gone pathless ; but here was a trail, and all 
along its triple tracks— miles away, to be sure— 
were lying the beauties and the wonders of the 
world, and home and friends. 

On we galloped, homeward, for a dozen miles 
or so, Joseph and I, and got to Fort Ellice an 
j hour or two before the train, and just in time to 
; escape a thorough wetting in a heavy thunder- 
storm. All about the stockades were Indian 
lodges, and crowds of the copper-colored Hia- 
\yathas came out to see us. Villainous Vermil- 
lion, lamp-black, and yellow-ochre disfigured 
their earthly habitations with liideous symbols, 
among wliich appeared some repulsive represent- 
ations of the Deity; and Vermillion, lamjj-black, 
and yellow-ochre disfigured also the tenements in 
which their half-starved souls were housed. The 
rain fell faster, and we hurried into the inclos- 
lu-e of the fort, gave our horses to one of the 
half-breed attendants standing about, and car- 
ried our saddle-bags into the main room of the 
house occupied by the trader in charge, Mr. 



AVdliam M'Kay. He soon came in, drip- 
ping with rain, and welcomed his unexpected 
guests in the friendliest way. Disappearing for 
a few moments in one of the tamily rooms 
which opened into this main hall on either side, 
he presently came out in dry clothes, with pipes 
and tobacco— kinnic-kinnic and dried winter- 
green leaves for our smoking — and we drew 
our chairs up for an exchange of news and in- 
formation. Presently dinner was served, and 
we sat dowTi to fresh buffiUo-steaks, hot bread, 
rice-pudding, strawberry-pie, and hyson tea well 
decocted. The table was of plain wood, painted 
a greenish-brown, and the chairs— heavy oak, 
high-backed, and substantial — were made by 
half-breeds, and the Belgian giant might have 
sat upon them with impunity. The hospitality 
with which we were entertained here was one of 
the pleasantest incidents of our journey ; and it 
is to the Hudson's Bay Company's credit that 
they so carefully select men who possess both the 
smtviter in motto to the passing traveler, and the 
iTojrai'iiferjniHorfo to scape-grace Indians. While 
we were at dinner one of Mr. JI'Kay's Indian 
retainers sat on the floor in the adjoining apart- 
ment, and devoured his bnfFalo-steak as happily 
as if happy to sit below the salt ; and his half- 
breed wife waited upon her lord's guests at table. 
Mr. M'Kay was born in the country, however, 
and had never been nearer civilization than Red 
River, his father liaving served the Company 
before him. 

The Qu'Appelle, or Calling River, is the 
principal tributarj- of the Assiniboine River; 
which, in its turn, is the princijial tributary 
of Red River. It enters from the west, a few- 
miles above the great south bend of the Assini- 
boine, and just at Fort Ellice. It is the river 
whose head-waters are linked to the head-waters 
of a considerable tributary of the great Saskat- 
chewan ; and an English engineer has proposed to 
dig a canal connecting the two, in order to turn 
the waters of the south branch of the Saskat- 
chewan into the Qu'Appelle and Assiniboine, 
so enlarging those streams as to make them nav- 
igable at all seasons of the year ; and thus, by 
avoiding the great rapids at the mouth of the 
Saskatchewan, to create a shorter, straighter. 
and unobstructed channel from Rod River Settle- 
ment to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. The 
cut would certainly not be so expensive as the 
Erie Canal ; and wlieu the inducements are as 
great as those which aided that pi'oject, doubt- 
less another De Witt Clinton will be born. 

We staid for several days at the fort ; and 
one of our day's tramps in the vicinity was to 
the junction of the Qu'Appelle and the Assini- 
boine — a view worth all the work it cost us. 

For three or four miles we followed the wind- 
ing trail through beautiful groves, here and there 
broken up by lakes and ponds covered with ducks, 
and at last came to a long descent through a 
magnificent forest of poplars. The daylight was 
sifted through the dense foliage overhead into 
cool shadows, and on every side the beautiful 
gray trunks environed us, shuttingout all glimps- 




jvs(mtm OF THE AmimwtinR anj> hv m-i'ihaa: aivL'jy*. 



cs of the OHtfir world. At every few rods wc 
Bcarc/l away a flor'k of jiiKCons that went whir- 
ring tliroiigli tin; leaves an<l liranches. At the 
foot of the hhifl" was the Qu'Appelle, whieh we 
struck a mile or two from its month. Tying the 
horses, wc paildl&l over on a few planks lofjsely 
tinkered together, and pnshing through the for- 
est, whieh nearly eovered the hottom land, came 
at la-stin full viewofaBplcndid hluff, higher than 
Bunker Hill .Monument, and looking like a huge 
fortification which Milton's angels might have 
built after the great combat. There is nothing 
at the East like the grand view from this high 
bluff. Wc could trace the windings of either 
river by the giant embankments which confined 
their waters. Here and there we beheld broad 
stretches of water where it widened out, sweej>- 
ing broadly and indolently around some project- 
ing point, or caught brilliant glimpses of its nar- 
rower channels through the thick green trcf^-tojis 
which wc ovcrlwjked. Far <iff to either horizon 
the gorge winds hither and thither, the near bluffs 
flanked successively by the more distant ones, a 
deeper c/ilor or a dimmer haze indicating the 
junction of some tributary stream, the vast ex- 
panse of green tree-tops checkered by the shad- 



ows of passing clouds. An eagle drifted ilown the 
air miles away, and flocks of pigeons were wing- 
ing their short swift flights from the summit of 
one [lOplar grove to another, in their flight over- 
looking all this wide expanse, and then sudden- 
ly sinking through the leaves out of the warm 
air and bright heaven of sunlight into the cool 
sliadows of the forest. 

The jifjint wirere the rivers met was in the 
low bottom land lx;tween the bluffs, three miles 
away from where we stood, and aft<;r wandering 
about the bluffs for miles uji and down to get 
the finest views, we laid our course for that. 
Through sand jjlains, wherean Indian had trudged 
along Ixifore us, digging with his ti[>»ini-stick, 
and leaving the track of his mwcasins with Iocs 
turned in, one foot straight before the other, wo 
laboriously phxlded. Little spires of grass, two 
or three spears in each, came up through the 
sand, and around eveiy one circles were traced, 
where the wind, sweeping through the hollow, 
hiul ticnt their tijis to the grotmd — circles as per- 
fect as tlic Italian drew and thought it proved he 
could build a cathedral. Between the clumps 
of j>f)|<lar, further on, wir fiath was pavwl with 
a more beautiful Mosaic than any in cathedral 



aisles. The lines were drawn in the deepest 
green, vines of running cedar, and the inter- 
spaces filled with an elastic carpet of grayish red 
sand or a pale gray moss of the loveliest tint. 
Wading then through si.x or eight hundred yards 
of marsh-rushes high as our shoulders, and then 
plunging into and through a half mile of the 
thickest underbrush, stumbling over fallen trees, 
and tearing our corduroys among the dense and 
tangled thorn-brakes ivhere was scarcely a square 
foot of empty air, suddenly we came" upon the 
point of land which marked the junction of the 
rivers. Indians in their canoes and traders in 
their batteaux have passed it many times ; but 
not this century- has it been seen from that point, 
surely, by any other eyes than ours. 

The bank wliere we stood was nearly perpen- 
dicular, the tree roots projecting its top ten feet I 
above the water. Oiiposite, the bank was of shelv- 
ing sand. There was as much water in the As- 
siniboine above the junction as in the Minnesota 
at the same season of the year. The sand-banks 
and bars, strewn with broken fragments of trees 
and other debris, and the concavities in the low 
banks, proved the recurrence of spring overflows. 
Both the Assiniboine and the Qu'AiJijelle were 




tahtino with the dootor. 



turbid, but not so much so as Red River. The 

Assiniboine had the lightest and swiftest cun'ent. 
the Qu'Appelle the largest and dficjiest. 

Returning to camj) by the cool purple light of 
a sunset sky, we heard as we neared the tents, 
which were pitched half a mile from the fort.' 
j tlie Indians who were camped about the stockl 
I ades, singing, beating their drums, and dancing 
the war-dance. They were a small war-party 
just returned from an expedition against the 
Sioux, and brought hack as their trophies a scalp 
dried and stretched upon a hoop and a human 
hand. Their monotonous thumps upon the drums 
divided and measured the silence, and presently 
the hideous chanting of the men, alternating with 
the softer antiphone of the women and children, 
broke upon the air. As we approached the fort 
the scene was more plainly visible. The red 
camp-fire lighted up their skin lodges and the 
tall stockades, and made more impenetrable the 
thick darkness of the ravine through which 
Beaver Creek ran, nearly two hundred feet be- 
low. This scalp dance thev keep n\, for the vic- 
tory with foces joyfully black, evorv night and 
morning till the snow falls, the women joining 
the dance, and the little children, naked coppers 
that can barely tod- 
dle, taught to whet 
their puny passions 
into the fierceness of 
adult hate and re- 
venge as faithfully 
as we teach the lit- 
tle ones we love to 
fold their hands, close 
their eyes, and prav 
night and morning 
to "Our Father in 
licaven." A woman 
danced and beat with 
her hands this fresh 
scalp, and a little 
child mocked its eld- 
ers with the bloody 
white hand dangling 
from its neck. 

The Indians pass- 
ed their days in gam- 
bling maiidy, the 
squaws in making 
moccasins. At the 
risk of adding to our 
traveling population 
we passed an after- 
noon in their lodges, 
introducing ourselves 
to their good graces 
with tobacco. In one 
tent a dozen of the 
dirty tribe were play- 
ing poker with greasy 
cards ; bullets the 
stakes. A wrinkled 
old hag joined them, 
as loud-mouthed cer- 
tainly, and as filthy 



I 



of manner and speech — so our interpreter said 
— as any of tliem. In another lodge two of t!ie 
women were sowing moccasins and ])hn'ing with 
their bahies triced up in their standing cradles. 
The men dawdled or jilayed cards, and raced 
horses, or set their dogs on a young bulialo- 
heifer owned at the fort, or hung around our 
tents watching all our motions, and trying to 
get a chance to steal even an old nail ; the wo- 
men only worked. And whoever undertakes 
the civilization of these savages must begin with 
the women, if he would ever see any fruit of 
his labors. 

Dr. C. L. Anderson, our geologist and botan- 
ist, left us here to descend the Assiniboine to Fort 
Garry in a birch canoe, with a single Indian 
guide, who could not speak a word of English. 
Two of us carried his canoe and traps in a wagon 
down to the river where he was to begin his 
journey, and saw him safely loaded and em- 
barked. The Doctor had been our consulting 
scientific dictionary ; and we regretted only the 
loss of his society more than the privation of 
looking upon nature, bays and breezes, rocks, 
strata, alluvial deposits, temperatures, isother- 
mals and plants, cryptogamous and other, alone, 
and with very unscientific eyes. Besides, he took 
his microscope away with him, and so shut up 
the door to one of our two Infinites, though, to 
be sure, it didn't require a microscope to unvail 
the infinite littleness of some things which he 
left behind him. Lacking a shoe to throw after 
the Doctor for luck, Joseph took the biggest of 
two figliting dogs that had followed our wagon 
:ind pitched him into the middle of the river as 
ihe Indian paddled away down the stream, his 
charge hardly daring to look over his shoulder 
for fear of upsetting the canoe. 

The same day our party broke up. The Fra- 
ser River boys had quite completed their outfits, 
and supplied the place of the leader of the ex- 
pedition, who declined to go any finther with 
them, with a guide familiar with the country, and 
who promised to put them well on their way for 
the Kootonais Pass before leaving them. 

Joseph, whom they all loved, went on a few 
miles with them, and we who were now on our 
return journey, had to cut sticks and leave them 
in the trail slanting the way we had gone — an 
aid to the pilgrim's progress, which he stoutly 
resented when he caught up with us at night- 
fall. There is no report e.xtant of those parting 
moments ; but it has been conjectured that Jo- 
seph made them an afi'ecting s])eech, in which 
it is to be hoped he dilated upon the superiority 
of instinct over the mariner's compass for the 
purposes of northwest explorers, and the great 
advantage to be gained in the long-run by mak- 
ing mules and horses travel in the summer months 
eight hours continuously, through the heat of the 
day, instead of in the cool of the morning and 
evening. If he did not, then the "frightful ex- 
ample" which we carried with us all summer 
failed to teach its proper lesson. One thing is 
certain, the little blue and gold copy of Bryant's 
Poems which had consoled us so far he gave to 



one of the emigrants, and if he keeps up his old 
habits of spouting, it is quite likely to prove un- 
true that the " Oregon hears no sound save his 
own dashings." 

Our leader here traded oif the tent, which sev- 
eral of the party had helped him to buy, for a 
young Buffalo cow, henceforth the companion of 
our journeyings. Our share in the cow was the 
amusement her antics afibrdcd us, and the pleas- 
m-e we enjoyed in having our daily rate of travel 
slackened for her benefit, about twenty per cent. 
" Jessie" — for that was her name — had an indis- 
position to keep her nose at a fixed distance from 
the ground, and also objected to having the chain, 
which held her to the tail-board of the Colonel's 
wagon, in contact with her bare skull. So on the 
first Sunday after leaving Fort Ellice we halted 
all day, and the great buffalo tamer constructetl 
a pair of tongs and a ring, which, with infinite 
labor, he at last succeeded in getting into the 
cow's nose. She could not stand as much pull- 
ing on her Schneiderian membrane as upon her 
horns, and so was more tractable ; but now and 
then she would butt the heavy loaded wagon out 
of the ruts with tremendous vigor, or, getting 
down on Iter knees, tojiple it over, or lie down 
herself and be pulled along by horns and nose in 
a shocking way. A little colt, that was under 
the protection of Joe and his mare, soon lost its 
first awe of the strange mo/istor, and came to a 
realizing sense of the tact that the cow could not 
chase him very far, whatever her pretensions ; and 
it was his especial delight to come gallo])ing up 
at full speed behind the cow, and, wheeling with- 
in safe limits, kick up his heels .at poor " Jessie," 
who, whether frightened or tormented, generally 
made the Colonel's seat an uneasy one for a few- 
moments after. 

The first day out we met a small party of plain 
hunters who re])orted twenty Sioux at Turtle 
Mountain, and one brigade of hunters returned 
to White Horse Plains. Of course we kept a 
closer watch, though the event proved it need- 
less. 

The blue, timber-skirted line of the Assini- 
boine was visible on our left for a day or two, and 
we crossed two of its small tributary streams in 
the first and second days' journey. The coun- 
try had the same general character as that be- 
fore described — a little more marshy, perhaps, 
but the same slightly rolling jjrairie land, with 
here and there ])oplar groves. Three or four days 
after leaving Fort Ellice, we noticed several prai- 
rie-fires on the horizon, and ])rescntly came upon 
the fresh tracks of Indians. They could hardly 
have been two hours before us, but fortunately 
our paths coincided only a little way. 

On Wednesday, the 1 7th of Augtist, about noon, 
we came upon our own old trail, by which we 
had gone needlessly so much to the west of Fort 
Ellice ; then we were twenty, now but five. 
Following it backward, wenooned at a beautiful 
spot, between the range of sand-hills of which 
I have before sjioken and a lake, where we had 
had a strawberry feast twelve days before. Not 
a berry remained. Leaving here the Moosehead 




;sr* 





FOBDINO AT TUK SAND-HILLS. 



Mountain and Fort Gariy trail for tlic ojicn coun- 
try, we traveled on, and before ni;;litfall struck 
the Turtle Mountain trail, choosin;^ a camp- 
ground just beyond Calumet or i^ipe River (a 
tributary of tbe Assiniboine), whicli at tliig point 
was forty feet wide and about four feet deep. 

Eight or ten miles from this caniijinp-ground 
was Mouse River. On the north side of it were 
lii(;h sand-hills, some of them wooded to the to]), 
and from tlieir summits we had a magnificent 
view of the country in every direction. 

These hills are a favorite camping-ground of 
the plain hunters. Deep, w-ell-worn trails con- 
verge here from every direction, and tlio prairie, 
at the fiiot of the hills, is covered witli llie debris 
of old encampments, broken bullalo-bones, tufts 
of hair, frames for drying the meat jireparatory 
to powdering it for pemmican, old moccasins, 
strips of calico, broken lodge poles, fragments 
of blue crockery of the Hudson's Bay Company 
pattern, and fire holes were dug in the earth at 
convenient intervals. 

Fording the river in some rapids, where the 
water was about one hundred feet wide and from 
four to six feet deep, and pressing through tlic 
thick willow clumps and the oak groves which 
skirt the banks of the rim of the stream, we 
camped in a little hollow near the river where 
the ground was relieved against the sky within 
gunshot on every side except that toward the 
river. 

Wliile Joe was curing his lunacy by rigging 
■'his masters" a mosquito net, Michelle and I 
rigged a couple of poles, and went for a string of 
lish. We caught a fine mess of white-fish, and, 



for aught I know, might have continued adding 
to the string till now. They bit very freely, and 
played splendidly. The meat was not unlike 
that of Connecticut River shad, though, if possi- 
ble, more delicate, with fewer bones. The eagles 
and fisli-hawks envied us our sport ; for several 
of them circled in tlie air over our heads, and 
when we lauded our i)rey, they often swoo])ed low 
enough for us to have struck them with our lance- 
wood tips. 

From this time till we reached Pembina Mount- 
ain, Michelle and Joe lived in constant fear of 
an attack of the Sion.x, and the former always 
(diose a cainping-groimd protected like the pres- 
ent one. For ourselves we had little fear, tliough 
we kejit a careful watcli ; for we knew that all 
the warriors of that tribe had gone further south 
to a great treaty-making with our Indian agent.s, 
and for a few weeks our line of travel, however 
dangerous at any other time, was quite safe to a 
well-armed party like ours. 

We had now entered upon the great buffalo 
ranges, and had not traveled ten miles befoi'e we 
saw a few bulls, six or eight miles to the east. I 
mounted Dan Rice and trotted slowly off in their 
direction, ho]nng to turn them toward the train, 
which kept steadily on its way. But while mak- 
ing my waythrougli a )jiece of low marshy grinmd 
tliey got out of sight. Returning to the trail I 
met Josej^h, who had remained behind to write 
up his journal. As we drew nearer to the train 
we saw the Colonel mount Fireaw.ay, and canter 
off at a lively rate to the east, beckoning us to 
follow him. We put spurs to our horses and 
galloped on. He had seen a bull and calf de- 



} 



scending into a deep coul'ic for water, and follow- 
ing his directions, we beat it up for a few rods, 
until we met him returning from the opposite 
direction. While we stood there wondering what 
had become of the creatures, they broke cover far 
beyond us, and started over the prairie at a steady 
gallop, the calf taking the lead. We all joined 
the chase, though the prairie was full of badger- 
holes and the game small. The excitement 
and the hope of a good supper were too much 
to resist. Fireaway's tremendous leaps soon 
took him outside the animals and turned them 
toward us. By skillful riding the Colonel sepa- 
rated the calf, which ran like a yonng antelope, 
from the old bull, and, with one well-directed 
shot, which broke his li.ack-bone just behind the 
skull, tumbled him to the ground, dead. 

The old bull gallojied aw.ay ; but in the course 
of the afternoon the train came up to where he 
had halted, and Joseph, mounted on his light 
pony. Lady Jane, made a beautiful chase, and 
shot the fellow not ten rods from the trail. It 
was a barren triumph for Joseph, however ; for 
the monster, though he had run so well and died 
game, had a hind-leg stitF with spavin, and be- 
sides had been badly gored, so that nothing of 
him was fit to eat save the tongue, which he 
would have spared to have kept Michelle's un- 
ruly member from wagging— Michelle, who knew 
a lame buffalo from a well one a thousand miles 
away. 

Michelle dissected the calf with a dexterity 
which, if employed upon a human subject, would 
have insured him a Wood prize at the Bellevue 
Hospital, and for two days our larder was full. 



Traveling as we were witliout a trail, the 
mariner's compass and the primitive intuitions 
of our leader again came in conflict. As it hni)- 
pened the latter conquered for a time, and so 
we were secured a visit to the groat south bend 
of Mouse River and the Hare mountains, which, 
if we had followed Michelle's instructions and 
taken a bee-line from Fort EUice to Turtle 
Mountain, we should never have seen. On the 
afternoon of the 19th, as we were journeying 
slowly along, Jessie, the buffalo-cow, trotting 
comfortably behind the Colonel's wagon, Joe 
bringing up the carts, Joseph and I jogging 
along on our horses ; and Michelle far ahead on 
foot with his rifle, keeping to his direction of 
"south 60° east" around and ever hills, down 
valleys and through marshes, as steadily as if 
electric currents had polarized him into perpetual 
fealty to that point of the compass, we began to 
discern from the high points of land high ridges 
at the east which seemed gradually rising higher 
and higher in a line about parallel with our 
course. These grew to mountains (or what are 
called such, in the absence of larger sjiecimens) 
the next day. Joe, who had sworn to us that 
he had wintered at Turtle Mountain, thought it 
was that veritable peak which we now saw, al- 
though so much farther to the east than we had 
expected. Michelle preserved a discreet non- 
commitalism, asserting that from one point of 
^'iew it did look like Turtle Mountain, and then 
again it didn't. His defense of his own remem- 
brances had succeeded so poorly against primi- 
tive instincts in another case that he was not 
disposed to say too much. The Colonel con- 




SOUTH BEND OF MOUSE ErVEB. 



eluded that it was Turtle Mountnin, and that 
he had all along been in the right in urging 
Michelle to keep a course further to the east. 
So the train was turned to the north of east, and 
we jnished straight for the highest peak. By 
the middle of the afternoon we were near enough 
to see that a river and wide bottom lands inter- 
vened, and a half hour's steady canter brought 
us to the great South Bend of Mouse River. 

We camped at the summit of one of the 
bluffs overlooking the bend, protected on the 
south also by a steep ravine, down which a little 
stream, that was almost a torrent, tore its way to 
the more secret places in the valley, where we 
could sit and watch the deer and antelopes as 
they came to drink. 

On Sunday two or three of us crossed the great 
plateau, ascended Hare Jlountain, and from its 
cold, windy top saw, aivay to the south, the long 
blue line of Turtle Mountain, made known to 
us, beyond a doubt, by the two blue and rounded 
arches rising out of it. Pembina Mountain, the 
course of Mouse River, our first fording-place 
by the sloping plateau, our second crossing- 
place near the sand-hills, Moosehead Mountain, 
Prospect Hill, and the fointer blue of the Assini- 
boine hills were all visible within the circle of 
the horizon; while for to the south, but full in 
sight, arose the clear blue line of the long-desired 
Turtle Mountain, crowned with its double peaks. 
The day ended in rain. Joseph and the 
Colonel had returned to camp, leaving me with 
my sketch-book, Dan Rice, and rifle. A huge 
drop on the paper-pad was the first warning 
that the storm threatened all day had really 
come. Galloping to a grove of oaks, I kept dry 
under the trees and waited some hours for the 
rain to hold up ; but the end was not yet. It 
was obviously inconvenient to remain there all 
night, and so a couple of hours before sunset I 
mounted Dan and set off for the camp. 

We had to cross two small streams, and Dan 
desired to be excused from jumjiing from bank 
to bank, and so we spent a drenching hour search- 
ing up and down the banks for a place where 
he could descend gradually to the water. This 
fairly accomplished, we soon came to the foot of 
the great bluff on the top of which the train was 
encamped. Along its foot ran another stream, 
wooded for a quarter of a mile on either bank, 
and fordable in but one or two places. 

In spite of the flapping leaves, the bedraggling 
boughs, the stumps in the way, the swamps in 
which Dan twenty times was bogged and lost 
two shoes, and the discouraging process of break- 
ing a way to three different but alike unfordable 
places in the stream, at last I made my own 
way on foot through the underbrnsh to the 
stream, first tying Dan outside the wood, and 
then, by wading down stream, at last found a 
place where the bank shelved snfiiciently, and 
the trees were few enough, to permit a horse's 
approach and crossing ; and from this spot final- 
ly found a road to Dan, trusting to Providence 
to be able to get from the stream through the 
woods on the other side and so to camp. 



There tlie Colonel was asleep inside his covered 
wagon, with which he had supplied the place of 
our tent — the only dry place within five hun- 
dred, miles — and the two half-breeds were hud- 
dling under the carts. Self-sacrificing Joseph 
was rolled up in a heap of blankets, over which 
he had pathetically stretched our mosquito-net, 
and there he sat smoking a pipe, watching the 
streams running through the top and down its 
sides, and discoursing to himself upon the muta- 
bility of all human aff\iirs — especiallv. tents. 
Joseph gave me the half of his blankets, only 
stipulating that I should .strip till I came to a 
dry surface. We divided our last morsel, a cold 
bufi'alo-tongue, and then submitted to the rain 
for the rest of the day, all night, and the next 
morning till nearly noon, by whicli time we were 
cuddling up together under the portion of the 
blanket yet preserved from the rain, which was 
a piece in its centre about the size of a half- 
dollar. 

When the sun came out overhead at noon, 
and the rain ceased enough for us to light a fire 
and fry pancakes, hap]jier mortals were never 
seen, the storm having demonstrated in British 
America the same truth as the pain in Socrates's 
shin, in old Greece, just before he drank hem- 
lock and began his immort.ality. 

The next day we crossed another half-breed's 
trail from Fort Garry to White Horse Plains, 
and numberless buftalo trails besides. These 
are wide and deep single tracks worn by the 
hoofs of buffalo, which, when migrating in small 
herds, if undisturbed, and if not feeding, always 
travel in single file. The marsh grass, into 
which they had gone for water, was trodden 
down, the dung was fresh, the tracks recent, 
and the places numerous where they had torn 
away the grass with their hoofs and rolled in 
the dirt to dislodge the flies. The reddish pur- 
ple arch of Turtle Mountain was visible to us 
through the summer haze all the afternoon, 
rising higher and higher, the trees upon its 
sides hourly becoming more distinct, resolving 
themselves first into clumps and groves, then 
into single trees. The next day we reached it. 
Turtle Mountain is only a high range of 
hills, heavily timbered, with beautiful prairies 
here and there dotted with groves stretching 
away from it on every side. It takes its name, 
of course, from its peculiar outline as it rises uji 
out of the prairie. Its general direction is north 
and south, with a deflection of the lower end. 
eastward, from 25° to 30°. After passing this 
lower end we had a better though distant view 
of its highest Imllp, the one whose blue crown 
we had seen from the top of Hare Mountain, 
overtopping all tlie surrounding range. This, 
our half-breeds told us, rises more perjiendicu- 
larly from the prairie, and is diflicult of ascent. 
Riding along with Michelle the next morning, 
half a mile ahead of the train, we caught sight 
of two buffalo bulls quietly feeding on a green 
slope near a marsh a mile or two to the south- 
east. Our horses were tired with months of 
continuous travel, unfit to run, and, to tell the 



i 



truth, I always ilc»|jaired of seeing Dan Hicc 
equal his first exploit. 

But our supply of meat wa« entirely exhaust- 
ed, and of tallow tfx>, which is to the prairie trav- 
eler butter, lard, and whatever else tliat is nec- 
essary in cofjking and unctuous in nature. Sfj 
as we came nejirer the two buffalo I spurred 
ahead of old .Miihelle, taking the left-hand val- 
leys, where my horse and I were hid from sight. 
Michelle waited the result just back of the brow 
•if a hill. 

Galloping on half a mile, I thought the valley 
Iwtween us not too wide for a long rifle shot, and 
■lismounting, went to the summit of the hill. 
One of the bulls had lain down, his back turned 
toward me, and so no good shot was possible ; 
and the other was just over the farther slope of 
the hill, kicking up his heels in the air, and 
-•rushing to pulp the flies that tormented him. 
There was no alternative but to ride to the next 
hill, a quarter of a mile beyond. For two or 
three minutes horse and rider were in full sight, 
if they had turned their heads to see ; but they 
did not, and in an instant more we were hidden 
by the hill. Here I dismounted again, untied 
the lariat from the saddle-bow, leaving it to trail 
under the horse's feet that it might keep him in 
the valley, and then hastened to the top of the 
hill. The bulls were still there, the further one 
quietly feeding. A long marsh lay Ixitween us, 
empty of water except in the spring, but at all 
seasons full of long thick grass, breast high, and 
the whole oval fringed with a golden rim of 
iiclianthus — the flowers growing rarer as on 
the slope of the hills the color of the grass was 
changed to a lighter green ; and here and there, 
in the circle, stood clum|>s of shrubber)- like 
sentinels guarding the tombs of departed water- 
nymphs. 

My weapon was the same Maynard rifle 
spoken of before, which a man may load and 
fire a dozen times in a minute if he be quick at 
taking aim, and not likely to be made nenous by 
excitement or danger. I put a half-dozen car- 
tridges in my hand, and set the primer, which pays 
out tape cajjs as fast as the rifle is cocked, and be- 
gan the approach. I might have fired at once 
upon the recumlient bull — the distance was not 
more than a hundred and fifty yards — but, except 
concealed, I could not hope to get the other bull, 
who would come to the top of the hill to recon- 
noitre, and, seeing me, yjerhaps get away without 
presenting a mark for a fatal shot. So crouch- 
ing below the level of the tips of the grass, where 
it was high enough, or running stealthily from 
clump to cluinj) of shrubljcry large enough to 
keep head and shoulders out of sight, in a quar- 
ter of an hour I had got within twenty yards of 
the nearest bull— the one lying down — and was 
barely concealed behind a clump of decayed pop- 
lar shrubs. Tlie other bull was hid behind llie 
-well of the hill. The wind, I ought to have 
<aid, was blowing in a course at right angles to 
my approach, or one had never got so near ; and 
had their strong odor come between the wind 
and my nostrils. I might have taken a longer 



range. One instant devoted to a steady hand 
and to a synofwis of the chances of jmrsuit and 
the means of escajje, and then I fired, aiming 
at his heart just back of the fore shoulder. Swift 
upim the crack of the rifle, liardly distinguisha- 
ble from it save by a quick ear, came the spat 
which told that the bullet had hit the mark, and 
then, before the bull could rise to his feet, the red 
blood showed that it had hit a fatal sjjot. I 
dropix^d in the grass behind the bush instantly. 
The shot bull rose to his feet slowly and pain- 
fully, and looked in every direction but the right 
one to see where the blow had come from. 
Michelle the half-breed mounted, and now stand- 
ing on the summit of the distant hill, drew his 
gaze for a moment, and then he turned to 
escape by way of the marsh I had crossed, 
and turning, saw me. Too weak to attack, 
he turned still again to escape from the near- 
est danger — slowly, deliberately, and with cvi- 
I dent j/ain — too much hurt to run. As he 
I turned I took a quick aim, fired, and hit 
I him jiLst over the kidneys, in the hofje of break- 
ing his back. The monster stopjied, shook his 
shaggy mane, that hung, bbck and curling, from 
, his jaw to his knees, walked on a few steps, and 
could go no further. His vast bulk heaved with 
j the tremors of apprrjaching death ; but I could 
j watch him no longer while uncertain what the 
I bull just over the hill might be doing. Hasten- 
; ing up the sIoik-, I caught sight of him standing 
and, apparently, gazing at the distress of his 
companion. He had not taken to flight ; for it 
is a jK'Culiarity of this sagacious animal that, 
till they know from what quarter danger comes, 
they will not run, but only huddle together, 
when in herds, perhaps the bulls circling about 
the cows and calves, and two or three of the 
older and larger bulls going to some elevated 
jxjint to discover the direction of danger. When 
only two or three are together, or when a single 
bull is fired upon from a concealed position, they 
will hardly move a dozc-n yards till they know in 
which direction it is safest to run. As this bull 
stood there, partly turned from me, hump, horns, 
and jiart of the shoulders visible, and ears and 
head erect, I fired, aiming as low on his tide 
as jKwsible, yet clearing the top of the hill. 
Spat ! — came back the sound of the bullet as it 
hit the creature's side, quicker than the echo of 
the rifle from the nearest hills, and then the 
huge "ugh" as it tore its way through his mus- 
cles and lungs. I loaded instantly, and, doing 
so, caught a second's glimpse of the first bull 
down on his knees and just turning over. As 
if to revenge the fall of his companion, or by 
some quick instinct, the second one galloped to- 
ward the top of the hill — not thirty yards from 
me — swept his lion-like head around to the spot 
where I stood — for concealment wag no longer 
possible — gazed an instant with his large, dark, 
ox-like eyes, flashing fire now, and then rushed 
headlong down the slope, horns low, full ujon 
me. The quick rifle .sjivcd my life. Before he 
had made a dozen leaps, or was within a dozen 
yards of me, it sent a bullet straight between his 





GOLGOTHA. 



eyes into the huge mat of black and curling hair 
that covered his skull. Tlie bullet would have 
leaped a thousand 3'ards of enijitv air quicker 
than a leaf falls ; but as for killing him, it might 
as well have struck a rock. It staggered him 
though, and, as I sav, saved my life; for I 
'■ould not have loaded again before he would 
liave had me on his horns, do tlie best I might. 
He turned in his course, as if a little dizzy, and 
not certain of his sight ; rushed by with leaps 
that shook the ground — not a yard from mv 
4de— but soon stopped, breathing hard. The 
lirst shot was beginning to take eft'ect. He walk- 
ed slowly away as I loaded, sometimes gallop- 
ing a few yards, and then staggering into a walk. 
Obeying the law of parsimony, I would not fire 
another shot, expecting every moment to see 
him drop, hut followed on slowly behind. As 
I reached the top of a hill that "had hid him a 
moment from my sight, I saw that he was re- 
newing his speed, and was already two hundred 
yards away, and might travel a mile or two yet 
away from the trail of the train, for such luige 
creatures a.s these take a great deal of killing. 
He turned to look for his pursuer, and thus gave 
me a good mark. I fired. Bang! spat! — that 
same peculiar sound ; and for the first time the 
great frame tottered nearly to its fall. A few 
steps on, and then he could walk no further — 
barely stand. As I approached he wheeled in 
his tracks, and turned his great shaggv head 
and its glaring eyes upon me, widening his feet 
to keep his stand. Then his hinder legs gave 
way, almost letting him fall ; but with convul- 
sive struggles, which seemed to wrinkle the 
thick skin over his back and loins as easily as 
if it had been silk, he rose erect again, still with 
his head u]), gazing. Almost suddenly then he 
gathered his legs under him and lay down quiet- 
ly, breathing hard and loud, in short, heavj' 
pants. Once more he rose to his feet, stagger- 
ed a few slow stejis toward me, then shuddered { 
with his vast bulk from head to tail, dropped on ! 



his knees, and failing to balance himself there, 
fell heavily over u]ion his side, breathed a few- 
more great gasjis, pawed the air, and then was 
still. Last of all, he stretched out his throat 
on the long prairie grass, dyed with his blood, 
and gently gave away his final breath. 

Before I reached the spot where the first bull 
fell, the train had come up, and Miclielle, with 
a dexterity acquired by more than thirty years' 
practice, had taken oft' the skin, and was cut- 
ting out the bos or hump, which, next to the 
tongue, is the choicest bit for eating. In less 
than an hour both were carved — rib jiieces and 
humps and shoulder-pieces, we supplied with 
fresh meat for a week and jerked meat for a 
fortnight — and the train was moving on. 

That night, after sujiper, as we gathered 
around the camp-fires, and while the red light 
was fading out of the clouds high in the sky, 
and the pui-jde passing down beyond the level 
horizon, old Michelle entertained us witli such 
stories of his adventurous life— of his buftalo 
hunts on snow-shoes — of his chases after herds 
of thousands — the goring and tossing and tramp- 
ling, biu-sting guns and broken limbs — such 
stories as, if put on paper, would make all the 
exploits of amateurs seem as tame and safe as 
crossing the main street of a country village. 

The next day we crossed the great trails from 
Fort Garry to Turtle Mountain, and passed a 
large encampment ground near a running stream, 
which had the same general a])])carance as the 
one by the sand-hills on Jlouse River. The bufl^a- 
lo trails were very numerous, and crossed our path 
in every direction, converging to and diverging 
from the ravines, coulees, and marshes, where 
they had sought water. The place for miles and 
miles, in every direction, was one huge Golgotha. 
The bleaehing bones and skulls of buft'aloes, slain 
in former years by the hunters, whitened the 
green grass on every acre, almost on every rood 
of ground ; and the fresher carcasses of those 
killed during the year's hunt were scattered over 



the ground, and tainted the air in every^ direc- 
tion. We could almost follow the track of the 
hunters in their chase, where the fight had been 
thickest, and hundreds corered a single acre or 
two ; and where some sturdier bull had kept up 
a longer flight, and finally, in an agony of thirst, 
had fallen and died in the middle of a marsh. 
The grass was of a greener green, and the flow- 
ers had a livelier hue which had been watered 
witli their blood. The rank verdure made a 
striking frame for the great black-haired skulls, 
or the heavy arching rib-bones, now bleached to 
whiteness, or perchance covered with shreds of 
flesh which the crows and hawks and foxes and 
wolves had not quite devoured. As the train 
passed on through this sickening place the crows 
and hawks rose from their carrion feast, and 
hovered in the air, shrieking and cawing, till we 
had passed ; and the gaunt gray wolves, scared 
away by our approach, ran off" over the prairie 
in long, lithe flexile leaps, now and then paus- 
ing in the thickest grass, and turning to watch 
us, licking their chops until we again came near- 
er, and then leaping aw.ay to hide in the long 
rushes of some distant marsh. All night we 
could hear their long, melancholy Iiowlings, 
and, as if not satisfied with their filthy feast by 
day, they lurked about the camp, frightening 
the horses into a stampede, and not unfrequent- 
ly chewing up their hide lariats within a dozen 
feet of their heads. 

Our journey from Turtle Mountain to Devil's 
Lake was accomplished within a few days. Buf- 
falo chases were an everyday occurrence with 
us, and game of every feathered kind was equally 
abundant. One Saturday afternoon we brought 
np in a " pocket" near the Lac de Gros Butte, 
where we were protected on two sides by water, 
and on one side by an impassable marsh, in 
which, at every few' moments, we could hear the 
whirr of ducks alighting or rising. A narrow 
neck of land was the only point at which the In- 



dians could have got at us. The shores of the 
lake, which takes its name from a high hill near 
by, were strewn with the carcasses of dead buf- 
falo, with huge wolf-tracks on the sand all about 
them, who had either been severely wounded by 
the half-breeds, and had escaped to the water to 
drink, or, having been pursued, had attempted 
to swim across the lake and perished. Here we 
had wood to build our fires for the first time 
since leaving Turtle Mountain. Instead of it, we 
had had to split u]) the least necessary parts of 
our carts for kindling wood, and cook our pan- 
cakes over red-hot liois de vache. 

The next day was a rainy one ; but the rain 
did not prevent us from taking a horseback ride 
to Devil's Lake. It was through much tribula- 
tion that we succeeded even in getting to so ill- 
named a place as Miniwakan. We had to ford 
half a dozen streams, swimming two or three of 
them, wade through marshes, and in crossing 
one stream whose banks were difficult of ascent 
or descent, we went around into the lake where 
it emptied, outside of its mouth, and had to trav- 
el by compass (having laid our direction) for 
nearly half a mile through water deep as the 
horse's shoulders, and where the tall rank rushes 
rose from six to ten feet higher still, shutting 
out the view of every thing but the sky, which 
looked in our environment as if we were behold- 
ing it from a well. Truth nor our primitive in- 
tuitions could have hardly served us as well as 
the compass did ; for we struck the narrow prom- 
ontory, for which ive had been steering so blind- 
ly, at its only accessible point. At every step 
we started up crowds of blue herons, cranes, 
gulls, snipe, ducks, geese, and sheitpokes. 

The rain fell continuously all the afternoon, 
and we could not see the opposite shores of Dev- 
il's Lake, which are doubtless risiljle at some 
points in clear weather. We could, however, 
now and then get a faint glimpse of the timber 
on a point of laud, shaped like a spoon, it is 




DEVILS LAKE. 



i 




EETOEN OF THE UUNTEKS. 



said, with the bowl entl (lointing out into the 
lake, where the Imlf-biccJs and Indians slaugh- 
ter hundreds yearly. They surround them in 
large companies, just as tlie elephants are trapped 
in Ceylon, or as the buffaloes themselves are 
fftught in timber-traps in some parts of the Sas- 
katcliewan district ; and by careful and not too 
rapid chasing large herds are at last forced to 
enter over this neck of land, where the water 
shuts them in on every side, and mounted horse- 
men are behind tlicm who may then shoot them 
down at their leisure. 

The Devil's Lake region is a favorite camp- 



ing-ground of the Sioux, and therefore is most 
sluinned by the half-breeds, except when they 
go in large andpowei"ful companies. The great 
brigades of course hunt them with impunity: 
and we came upon their tracks, tlieir cam])ing- 
grounds, miles of burned prairie or of Golgothas. 
their trails, and the hea])s of bones, broken, and 
the marrow dug out, which told where they had 
been making pemmiran, every day almost from 
Turtle Mountain to Devil's Lake and Pembina. 
Beyond this jioint, therefore, across, southwest, 
to the mouth of the Sheyenne on Red Rii'er, or 
further into the Sioux country. Michelle, thought- 



ful of the husband of his wife, and the father of 
his babies waiting for him at St. Jo, refused to go. 

So the explorer was unable to learn if the 
hypothenuse of the triangle from Upper Red 
River to the south bend of tlie Saskatchewan 
was as much better and briefer for travelers as 
it is for mathematicians. 

From the Lac de Gros Butte, therefore, we, 
all together, took the straight Devil's Lake and 
St. Jo trail. My journal of the date says : 
"We have ended now our travel without trails, 
and soon trails will be roads, and roads railroads, 
to carry us Eastward Ho ! " 

The last day of August, late in the afteraoon, 
we came to the brow of Pembina Mount or pla- 
teau, from which we could overlook St. Jo, 
live miles away. We were still 500 miles from 
the outposts of American civilization ; but we 
greeted the log-houses of the half-breeds with as 
much enthusiasm as we could possibly have done 
the dome of the New York City Hall with the 
figure of Justice sui'mounting it. The trail was 
worn deep ; tlie trees on tlie ])latoau, and down 
its side, were large and thickly leafed, and no- 
thing could have added to the beauty of sunset, 
which cast such long shadows down the side of 
the hill and over the prairie, except, perhaps, the 
siglit of a train of half-breeds returning from the 
summer hunts, with loaded carts creaking heav- 
ily along the winding road, down the mountain 
side, the men in their bright colors, and their 
horses g.ayly caparisoned — home in sight, the 
last camping-ground passed. 

Some such sight as this we saw a little after 
sunrise the next day. While at breakfast we 
heard, near by in a ravine of the thick woods 



which surrounded us on every side, Sioux war- 
songs. Michelle and Joe, fearful that a war- 
party of the rascals was on our track, hurried to 
the horses, unjjickcted and harnessed them, load- 
ed the carts, and all of us were in the saddle 
and pushing on briskly to St. Jo in less than 
five minutes. It was .a false alarm, however. 
We heard nothing farther from tliem as wc 
galloped on through the majestic woods which 
covered the slojie of the mount and skirted the 
Pembina River on either side. We slackened 
our pace after putting the river between us, and 
entering St. Jo, drove to Kittson's Post. We 
had hardly got inside of the stockades, shaken 
hands with every man in the town, answered in- 
terrogatories pro])ounded in French, Chijipewa. 
Crec, and Nistoneaux, before we heard a volley 
of musketry in tlie woods, rapidly succeeded by 
another and another, and mingled with shouts 
and halloos that could come from none but semi- 
civilized throats. 

The party soon emerged from the woods ; the 
very carts dragged along at a lively trot, swift 
riders galloping ahead, some of them with huge 
white butialo skins trailing from tlieir shoulders, 
like the vestments of a priest at high mass, and 
painted with savage devices and in gaudy col- 
ors ; others in the blanket and leggins of Sioux 
braves, tricked out with painted (yiills or brill- 
iant wampum ; others still in the half-breed 
dress, woolens, with handsome bead decorations, 
skin caps — a motley crowd, headed by Battiste 
Wilkie, the President of the Councilors of St. 
Jo. It was a deputation of half-breeds return- 
ing from a grand treaty-making with the Sioux 
at Devil's Lake. 



TO RED EIVER AND BEYOND. 



[SrjitH ^apet.] 



ONE Tuesday morn- 
ing we began our 
journey from Pembina 
to the Selkirk settle- 
meat. 

Joe Rolette, our host, 
with his two little boys 
whom he was taking to 
the Catholic school at the 
settlement after the sum- 
mer vacation ; Mr. Bot- 
tineau, a French half- 
breed, whose excellent 
farm between St. Joseph 
and Pembina I have men- 
tioned in another place ; 
Joseph, and myself were 
of the party. Joe Ro- 
lette rode in a miniature 
Red River cart with his 
youngest boy — a minia- 
ture of himself — behind 
a diminutive mule re- 
joicing in the title of 
Thomas Jefferson, and 
with a genuine patriot- 
ism responding by an 
accelerated gait to the 
exclamation of his ab- 
breviated Christian name 
— "Tom!" Tom was a 
mule in miniature, sav- 
ing only his ears, and 
held together in his lit- 
tle and tight fitting skin 
all the virtues and none 
of the vices of the race 
of which he was the min- 
imum. The cart which 
he drew was loaded with 

all the blankets of the party, the cooking uten- 
sils, pemmican, bread, and other provisions, and 
the passengers mentioned ; but he drew it along 
at a lively trot from sunrise to sunset, forty-four 
miles a day, with the vigor and continuity of 
the balance-ivheel of a chronometer, and tired 
out even the first-rate horses which the rest of 
us rode. 

A few words will describe the appearance of 
the country between Pembina and Fort Garry. 
In all external aspects, to one who travels by 
the river road, it is the same from Fort Aber- 
crombie to within a few miles of Lake Winni- 
l)eg. The direction of the road is very nearly 
north. It is the continuous cliord to which the 
river, in its winding course, supplies a hundred 
greater or lesser arcs. The banks of the river 
are thickly wooded with elm, oak, and poplar, 
and this wall of trees is at the traveler's right 
throughout the journey, always bounding the 
eastern horizon. This general prospect is varied 




JFJU? BiTTISTE WFLKIE. 
Presiilent of tha CouDcUorB of St. Joseph, in Siom TsRrrior's dress.— See Sfaffazine, October, 1B61». 



by lines of timber stretching away to the west, 
and marking the course of the tributaries of Red 
River. 

About the middle of the forenoon, near one 
of these tributary streams, we came in view of a 
shanty, inhabited by .an old Scotchman and his 
wife — she the first white woman in the Selkirk 
settlement. We were treated to bowls of fresh 
milk, with the cream standing thick upon it. 
and making a man blush to remember that he 
came from a city where stump-tailed abomina- 
tions and watery-blue dilutions had long since 
led him to forget the appearance of the genuine 
lacteal fluid. 

The shanty was not neat nor well furnished. 
The bed, which stood in one comer, was small 
and narrow, the walls had never been white- 
washed, nor the mud floor boarded over, though 
the cooking-stove and table, which also occupied 
this their only apartment, left little of the floor 
to be seen or trodden upon. 



An hour after sunset we came to the spot 
where we were to pass the night. It was one 
always used by the phiin hunters, and marked 
by heaps of ashes, charred stumps, and well- 
»rorn paths leadiuf; down to the water's edge. 
An okl man and his wile had come to the camp- 
ground before us, and were camping lialf-way 
down the bank, to be slieltered from the cold 
wind wliicli was blowing over the prairie. As 
we led our horses down to the water, we could 
see their faces by the camp-fire, both wrinkled 
and seamed with old age, and his wliite hairs 
and stooping figure indicating that he had passed 
the threescore and ten, beyond wliich all is la- 
bor and trouble. He was sitting on the ground 
in the lee of a large log, smoking a short pipe, 
while the woman was blowing tlie embers of 
their fire to get a coal to put in lier own. They 
had evidently had tlieir scanty supjier of tea and 
pemmican, and had spread their single pair of 
blankets in preparation for the niglit. Our host 
knew them, and wlien we had made our own 
huge fire on the prairie — of logs too large for 
tlicm to lift — and were eating supper by its cheer- 
ful blaze, he told us their story. 

It was the pitiful story of another Lear. The 
old man had been strong and vigorous, and well 
to do in his prime, fiimous as a breaker of horses, 
and had gathered togetlier a little property, 
enough, if well husbanded, to keep him and his 
wife from poverty. All this, when he began to 
feel the infirmities of age, he had given to an 
adopted son, asking in return only the food and 
shelter necessary for his few remaining years. 
For a short time he was well cared for; but 
when tliis foithless wretch had it all securely in 
his hands, and he became accustomed to its pos- 
session, he set the old pair adrift, and now is 
laying up ill-gotten wealth, and counts his cattle 
on Sundays, and thanks God he is not poor as 
other men are, and goes to sleep comfortably 
housed, while the cold wind and rain drench the 
white liairs of the old man and womait who had 
called him son. 

We were up and off long before sunrise (but 
the old man and his wife had started before us), 
and rode fifteen miles briskly before breakfast, 
meeting several Rod River trains, wliich had 
made an early start on their way to St. Paul or 
the plains. We stopped for breakfast at the 
house of Mr. John I)ace, which marks the be- 
ginning of the more thickly inhaljitcd part of the 
Red River settlement — from this jioint stretch- 
ing down to the vicinity of Lake Winnipeg, 
clustering most thickly in the vicinity of Fort 
Garry, si.xteen miles below. 

At Mr. Dace's house every thing was in strong 
contrast with the house at which we had lunched 
on the previous morning. Neatness and thrift 
were obvious at a gl.ance. The men were out in 
the fields g.nthering in the harvest, and the warm 
sunshine of an autumn morning was lying on the 
clean plank floor, as it loves to lie where there is 
stillness, and it can make cool shadows. The 
morning's work had long been completed, the 
floor scrubbed, every thing set to rights, and tlie 



baby sent to sleep in a swinging hammock, made 
of long cord and a shawl, by the time we came. 
In the adjoining apartment we could hear the 
low talk of women. The wife of Mr. Dace, a 
half-breed woman inclined to corpulency, soon 
came in, and learned our wishes ; and while 
breakfost was preparing for us in the next room 
we had time to look round us. The room was 
a spacious one for a block-house, and one of the 
heavy beams which ran under tlie ceiling wa> 
supported by a stout post, against which the 
baby's hammock swung, giving him a slight 
jerk, which, to a metropolitan baby, for in- 
stance, would have been any thing but sleep- 
provoking. A double bed, on which I could 
see plenty of good blankets, but no white sheets, 
stood in one corner, and two or three old oak 
trunks served for seats on one side of the room. 
The chairs were of the same sulistantial home- 
made manufacture, and one or two had bottom;- 
of hide, like those of snow-shoes. The tabic 
was an old-feshioned one, the leaves supported 
by swinging legs. The walls were neatly white- 
washed, and where the plastering had been 
rubbed the invariable neatness of the apart- 
ment was preserved, though at the expense of 
mortar. The windows were small, and the door 
low — the doors being accommodated to the size 
of the windows, perliaps, and the saslies to the 
size and costliness of the little six by eight panes 
which, when the house was built, were worth 
Is. G(/. sterling. Through the open door we 
could catch a glimpse of the waters of tlie river, 
red wliere the sun shone upon them through the 
trees, from beliinc^ us. Pigeons and wild geese, 
witli potatoes and turnips unsurpassable any 
where ; bread and butter, cheese and tea, white 
sugar and cream were set before tis. Mr. Dace 
was too far back in the fields on the prairie to 
be called; but as we drove on we noted the 
luxuriant growth of the vegetables in his gar- 
den, and tlie thickness of the sheaves in his 
wlieat field. 

Delayed by Joe's horse-racing and a drunk- 
en ferryman, above the settlement, we did not 
come in siglit of the spires of the Cathidrak dr 
Saint Bonifiice till near sunset. At last they 
ajipearcd — two bright lines rising above the last 
grove of ])oplar trees through which we had ti^ 
pass, standing out clear and glistening against 
the deep blue of the sky, and surmounted by the 
cross. A little farther on we left the woods be- 
hind us, and came in full view of the heart of 
the Red River settlement — the very spot where, 
half a century ago, the Earl of Selkirk planted 
his colony. Close at our left was another field 
of wheat, half of it hai-vested, and each pile of 
yellow sheaves sending its long eastward shadow 
over the closely shaven plain. Near at hand 
two half-breeds were loading a cart, and where 
the standing wli^at began, a group of reapers 
were busy at work with sickle and scythe, wo- 
men following behind, raking and binding, u.^d 
adding to the golden tents upon the field at one 
end as fast as they were taken aw.ay at the other. 
Tlie red sashes which most of the men wore snp- 




CATnEDKAL OF 6T. BONIFACE. 



j)lie(i the only lacking color in the landscape. 
Beyond them, to the west, flowed the winding 
blue line of the river, tojjped by the dark brown 
of its farther bank, left in shade by the setting 
sun. A mile beyond, on its western bank, just 
where the shaded blue waters of the Red River 
were augmented by the gleaming silver of the 
Assiniboine, on which as it flowed from the west 
the sun still shone brightly, stood the massive 
quadrangle of Fort Garry, with its four cone- 
topped bastions ; and directly ahead of us, on 
one side of the river and close to its banks, a few 
rods further on, whither all the waters of the 
two rivers seemed to sway and flow, arose the 
high walls of the Cathedral of Saint Boniface, 
surmounted by the two glistening spires which 
liad greeted us at a distance. 

Fort Garry is a very fine structure. The ex- 
terior wall is of limestone, quaiTied on the river 
liank near by. At the four corners are four im- 
posing bastions. Of the thickly -crowded houses 
within, one or two may be of the same material, 
limestone, but most are of wood, including the 
Company's officers' quarters, and tliose of the 
oflicers of the Royal Canadian Rifles, a company 
of which is stationed here, whose rations are sup- 
plied by the Hudson's Bay Company. As you 
enter the spacious quadrangle by the arched 
gate-way, which opens to the south close to the 
bank of the Assiniboine, tlie impression is the 
usual one at sight of soldiers' barracks ; but pass- 
ing to the building at the northern end of tlie 
square, and by the soldiers and sen-ants who are 
straggling about, this impression vanishes as you 
come in view of the spacious edifice in which 
Chief Factor JI'Tavish, who is also Governor 
M'Tavish, of the colony of Assiniboia, resides. 

We were treated with great courtesy by the 
Governor during our stay in the settlement, and 
the innumerable questions which the current of 
conversation and recent events led us to ask, 
were responded to with an unfailing freedom and 



sincerity. In some of the Canadian commis- 
sioners' reports the reticence and the. misrepre- 
sentations of the Company's oflicers are dwelt 
u])on, but in this quarter, at least — and it is the 
highest in the settlement — we found neither. 
Governor M'Tavish is a gentleman of Scotch 
birth or descent, as his name and appearance in- 
dicate. His figure is tall, and his head finely 
shaped, with a broad, high brow, which, without 
particularly jutting eyebrows, gives you the im- 
pression of mental calibre. The wrinkles upon 
his forehead and face are such as care, not age, 
accounts for, and are set-oft' by the Palmerston 
style of whisker and a heavy mustache, together 
with long sandy hair, in which the streaks of 
gr.ay are only beginning to appear. His man- 
ners had the quiet, well-bred tone oftener found 
among Englishmen than others, and his voice is 
low from the same cause or from some bronchial 
aft'ection. Energy, determination, and execu- 
tive ability were tiie obvious characteristics of 
the man. 'Uliat we had before learned of his 
culture and tastes was confinned by the books 
which we saw lying on the table and book-cases. 

At many of the posts of the Com]>any the 
year's business is done up in a few weeks, and 
till the same season rolls around again there is 
an absence of all employment, and a closing out 
of all news, such as afi'ords the common food of 
thought to most persons linked by daily er week- 
ly newspajjers to the rest of the world. Some 
of the Company's officers are wise enough to im- 
prove these long intervals of leisure, taking care 
to supply themselves with books, which do not 
perish with the single using. The Governor was 
long stationed at York Factory, where all the 
business of the year is crowded into the brief two 
months in which the ships of supply from En- 
gland, and the boats from the interior posts with 
furs, arrived and departed, and there or elsewhere 
made himself a learned man. 

In regard to the settlement of the northwestern 




FOET GAREV. 



areas, it may be well here to obsen-e that, inas- 
much as timber occurs mainly on the banks of 
rivers, their population will be greatly retarded 
or increased by the knowledge of the existence 
of other kinds of fuel at accessible points. We 
had been repeatedly informed by half-breeds of 
the existence of coal or lignite in strata in the 
banks of Mouse River and the Saskatchewan. 
Governor M'Tavish showed us pieces of lignite 
from that river — the first that we had seen — and 
confirmed the fact of its existence on the upper 
waters of Mouse River. He added, that it was 
used habitually during the winter at Fort Pitt ; 
and a retired chief factor, whom we aftcnvard 
visited, told us that at his former station, at the 
Carlton House, it had supplied their blacksmith's 
forge. The important bearing of this fact upon 
the future population of the northwestern coun- 
try is apparent. There is considerable pine tim- 
ber upon the great streams of this northern riv- 
er system ; and if trees were planted with pains 
by all new settlers, a sufficient supply for or- 
dinary purposes might be kept up. But it is to 
be taken into the account, that in these high 
latitudes the winter season is of longer duration 
than in the equally fertile and likewise timber- 



less prairie districts of our own Northwestern 
States. As the need shall arise these mines of 
coal will, therefore, be worked, and will supply 
the fuel of millions for a thousand years. Such 
difficulties as are now had in burning it will not 
be experienced when coal stoves supply the place 
of the open hearth. 

I suppose that Norman TV. Kittson is the man 
who has done as much as any one to break uy 
their happy solitude. As long ago as 1844 he 
was guilty of forging the first link which con- 
nected the Jlississippi and the Red River of the 
North. As always, trade was the occasion of 
the enterprise. Ills store, which was formerly 
at Pembina, on our side of the international line, 
tapped the rich fin- trade, in which, north of the 
line, the Hudson's Bay Company had a monop- 
oly, and perhaps he now and then purchased 
from hunters north of the line skins to balance 
those which the Company's men gathered south 
of it. Now the license of exclusive trade has 
expired, and Mr. Kittson is allowed an open ri- 
valry in the settlement itself. His store stand> 
on the cast bank of the Red River, opposite the 
mouth of the Assiniboine. He and other enter- 
prising traders, during the year 185 7, sent through 



St. Paul houses, for exportation below, more than 
■i 1 20, 000 worth of furs. Bloreover, traders and 
private parties are sending money as well as furs 
to St. Paul, for sujiplies. Formerly they had to 
rely on the favor of the Hudson's Bay Company, 
and undergo the delay, and share the expense of 
tlie loug trip of the ships from York Factory to 
England and back. Now the round trip can bo 
made, by way of St. Paul and New York, in 
thirty to forty days, and in the year mentioned 
as much money's worth of money as of furs was 
left by these people in St. Paul— w 120, 000. 

A day or two after our visit to Fort Garry, Jo- 
seph and I hired two saddle-horses, for a trij) to 
the lower stone fort, properly called Lower Fort 
Garry. We had crossed the river at this ])oint 
before in a canoe, but the difficulty experienced 
in getting our horses over tlie two rivers — Red 
River and the Assiniboine — gave us a realizing 
sense of the nature of the ferry and ferryman, 
and new facts for generalization as to tlie char- 
acter of tlie Red River half-breeds. I believe 
the person who leases the ferry-boat pays £20 a 
year for the privilege, and charges three-pence 
for a passage; but the ferry-boy, according to 
our observation, spends a jiortion of his time 
dodging the demands on his paddles and his pa- 
tience. The bank of the river is of stratified 
clay, which in rainy weather is exceedingly slip- 
pery, and accumulates in tremendous quantities 
about the feet ; and there is nothing to prevent 
horse, eart, or man from slipping from the top 
of the bank into the river, except a log or two 
where the boat lands. It has never entered into 
the mind of the owner of the ferry, I presume, 
to save himself the delay of carts in getting down 
the bank carefully, by building a plank walk 
with elects from its top down to low-water mark. 
The ferry-boat is a flat boat twice as long as 
broad, and tackled to a cable which is stretched 
from shore to shore. The rope which connects 
the forward end of the boat with the cable being 
shortened, the side of the boat is swung around 
so that the current helps to shove it over. The 
same steep and muddy bank is at the west side 
of the river ; also on the south side of the Assin- 
iboine— the same lazy ferry over it, and the same 
unplanked bank on its north side. Moj-eover, 
there is no boat running straight across the Red 
River below the Assiniboine. To cross from the 
east side of the Red River to the side below the 
Assiniboine, where Fort Garry stands, one must 
needs cross both rivers in this tedious way, sub- 
ject to the mercy of the mud if it rains, of the 
ferryman if he is lazy, and of the two rivers in 
any case. We were an hour and a half in get- 
ting to the fort with our horses, in spite of work- 
ing our passage by hauling at the ropes. If 
things work as they will work, my opinion is 
that that ferryman will go to his grave haunted 
by visions of a jjlanked bank down to the Styx, 
and Charon as a driving Yankee running a two- 
horse ferry-boat across the damned river ; and it 
is not impossible that, on stormy nights, the good 
Doctor, who resides at the fort near at hand, may 
bo waked from his virtuous slumbers by the shout 



of some future bold captain calling on his men, 
through tlie wind and rain, to take a reef in the 
stove-pipe, or to whip up the nigh horse. 

But we were over at last, and spurring our 
horses, galloped on down the river. A few 
sketches made on our return journey will give 
the reader an idea of the appearance of the views 
at two or three of the principal points between 
tlie two forts. But it must be left to his imag- 
ination to picture the immense fields of wheat 
which we found, some on the right of us going . 
to the houses, wliich continuously skirt the river, 
and others to the left of us extended over the 
jirairie almost as far as the eye could reach. As 
along the bank on the other side of the river, 
above Fort Garry, so on this side of the bank 
below it, the straight road led us through poplar 
forests and shrubbery, through which, at every 
bend of the river, we could catch glimpses of the 
fields of wheat, or barley, or potatoes, or oats— 
the neat white homes of the settlers rising at fre- 
quent intervals, surrounded by their well-thatch- 
ed outbuildings, and hay or wheat stacks— these 
daily growing more numerous, for our journey 
was made in the very middle of harvest time, 
and part of it in the light of the harvest moon. 

Often the dwelling of some retired Hudson's 
Bay Conqiany officer might be seen on a com- 
manding iioiiit, distinguished by its superior size 
and height from the buildings around it. Here 
numbers of the old factors or traders of the Com- 
pany are contented to return and spend the rest 
of their days, among the scenes and under a ju- 
risdiction familiar and agreeable to them, relying 
for news of the entire world ujion their montlily 
files of the English newspapers ; for supplies of 
the necessaries of life upon the half-breed farm- 
ers and hunters around them, and of its luxuries 
upon their annual importations from England, 
or, in latter years, the States. 

Spires of churches, and the long arms of wind- 
mills, broke the level lines of the pictures thai 
greeted our eyes as the road led us on from open 
place to oiJcu place, through the poplars that 
surrounded it for a ]jortion of the way. Wind- 
mills grind the wheat for all the settlers. There- 
is one steam-mill, with two run of stones and a 
set of saws. It was not grinding or sawing when 
we passed ; but in its shadow two men were la- 
boriously dragging at either end of a heavy rip 
saw, though the circular was in perfect order. 
Whose fault this is I can not guess, but it is 
clear that in an American settlement the settlei's 
would not suffer it to be any one's fault. 

In like manner the road, which had been be- 
gun to be mended in several places, was left half 
finished, its last state worse than its first. In 
dry weather, however, it is as level as a floor. 
Tliere is a bridle-path close on the banks of the 
river, but no road. 

Our own horses we had left at Pembina, to get 
fat for the home journey, and the horses which we 
hired for this trip might have been buftalo run- 
ners in their day, but their days must have been 
in Lord Selkirk's time. It was dark before we 
had got half-way to the lower fort. Wo di-cw 




EESIDENOE Of J. U. HAEKIOTT, EfiQ. 



hriflle, therefore, at the residence of Mr. J. H. 
Harriott, a retired chief factor of the Hudson's 
Bay Company, to wliom we had letters, and 
whose residence was a mile nearer than the low- 
er fort, where -we had at first intended to pass 
the night. 

A true gentleman of the old school — th.at we 
were within the walls of his house was sufficient 
reason why he should treat us like princes. 
Though, to tell the truth, we did not even have 
the honor of resemhling princes incognito. One 
summer's journey on the prairies had reduced us 
almost to extremities in the matter of clothing. 
We wore horrowed " biled shirts," mine covered 
with a borrowed coat once and a half too large, 
and Joseph's covered with a coat, his own, so 
ragged that that had to be concealed by an over- 
coat just a little better. As for our trowsers, 
" the least said the soonest mended;" and they 
would have stood but little mending more. With 
hair uncut and beards untrimmed, sun-burned, 
and looking more like foot-pads than gentlemen, 
we had ventured upon this journey with a degree 
of confidence in the natural agreeableness of our 
countenances and amenity of our manners — that 
they would interpret us aright — such as, under 
better clothes, we should never have dared to 
indulge. As we rode along in the twilight, we 
had amused ourselves by assuming to be what 
we must have seemed — Dick Turpins, Jack 
Shepherds, patent-safe men — but before riding 
into Mr. Harriott's gate recovered our dignity 
as possible princes. 

None of our suspicions seemed to have entered 
the minds of our host and Iiostess. Wliile we 
remained under their roof — a period protracted 
at their own request — we were the recipients of 
a bountiful lios])itality. 

From numerous long and interesting conver- 
sations with our host, we obtained many partic- 



ulars regarding the management and practical 
working of the Company's ojierations, and es- 
pecially regarding the geography of the Sas- 
katchewan district and the district lying be- 
tween its waters and those of the Missouri and 
of the Rocky Mountains, from the Kootonais 
pass northward. In the various capacities of 
clerk, chief trader, and chief factor, Mr. Harriott 
had traveled over or resided in many places in 
this vast territory. Now establishing a trading- 
post at the foot of the Rocky Blountains ; now in 
charge of tlie Carlton House or of Fort Pitt, on 
the head-waters of the Saskatchewan ; and, again, 
leading parties, with a rich freight of furs, 
through a dangerous Indian country ; and there, 
or elsewhere, having such hair-breadth escapes, 
and such exciting adventures, undergoing such 
risks, and hardships, and exposure, as would 
make one thrill to hear, though never to be 
heard from his lijjs except by solicitation, which 
added the charm of unconscious modesty to 
what was already sufiiciently brave and admira- 
ble. 

A view of Mr. Harriott's residence is given 
above, and may be taken as a type of the better 
class of dwellings in the Selkirk settlement. It 
is built of limestone, quarried from the native 
rock, and within and without was jjlanned by 
its owner. One fact reveals some of the causes 
of the stagnation of things at Red River. Mr. 
II., when building his house, left in the spacious 
dining-room an arching alcove for a side-board, 
at the same time giving a cabinet-maker at the 
settlement an order to fill it. Several years 
have elapsed, but what with the cabinet-maker 
hunting, and farming, and doing notliing, Mr. 
H. has not yet seen even the wood of which 
his side-board is to be made. 

A few well-selected books, house-plants in the 
windows, choice engravings on tlie wall, riding 




LOtt'EB rOKT GAEEV. 



whips and guns in tlie Iiall, tobacco jar and pipes 
on the sido-table, a melodeon and accordeon 
and music-box in the room ivhicli New England- 
■»rs call a parlor, tell the story of how the pleas- 
ant summer days and long winter nights are 
whiled away, and how a life of exposure and ad- 
venture and toil is rounded with rest and calm 
and domestic peace. 
' One pleasant afternoon our host ordered his 
carriage to the door and drove us to the " Stone 
Fort." The horses were a gay pair, and whirled 
their load down the graveled walk and over the 
bridge and along the road at a pace that needed 
a strong hand on the reins. The carryall was 
of a soberer sort, imported from England by way 
of Hudson's Bay and York Factory, and of a i>at- 
tern not now in fiishion here or there — low, 
heavy wheels, thick, substantial whiffle-trees, 
high dash-board, and a body like that of tlie cai-- 
riages of well-to-do English sipiires half a cen- 
tury ago. We were soon at the fort. The 
view here given was taken from the south — the 
direction in which we came. Tlie fort is built 
of solid limestone, as are many of the buildings 
inclosed, and is, perhaps, the most imposing of 
the Company's structures. It was erected at the 
advice of Sir George Simpson, but has never 
been of the use which was anticipated for it. Its 
capacious buildings seri'e mainly for the storage 
of furs and provisions, and the large crops which 
are gathered from the farm. A distillery near 
by, where the Company once undertook to manu- 
facture their liquor, is no longer used for that 
luirpose. When Assiniboia is made a colony, 
the fort may be bought for government offices. 

One Sunday morning I had the pleasure of 
accompanying my host and his wife to the church 
of St. Andrews, of which Archdeacon Hunter is 
in charge. The church was well filled : the 
congregation a well-dressed one — not ditJ'ering 



greatly, I think, from one which might be seen 
in any countiT village irf England, since it 
consisted, in tlie bulk, neither of French half- 
breeds, who are almost always Catholics, nor 
of Scotch, who worship at the kirk, but mainly 
of the English and their descendants : together 
with a few half-breeds here and there, Com- 
pany's sen-ants and officers, a retired chief trad- 
er and fiictor or two, and on the walls the tablet 
of one who had lately died. 

The sketch below of the church edifice, in 
which Archdeacon Hunter officiates, may give p. 
faint idea of its appearance and situation. It 
is, perhaps, the neatest building in Red River. 
Constructed of limestone, from the quarries 
near at hand, the stone has been dressed and 
piled with more regard to architectural rules 
than any other. A wall of the same kind of 
stone surrounds the church and the grave-yard 
in its rear. Its position upon the banks of the 
river is a very fine one. Standing upon its 
porch one ma}' look up or down tlie river and 
see the neat homes and farms of the settlers, 
while its tasty outlines form a prominent object 
in the landscape to those gazing upon it from 
either direction. 

Dining with Thomas Sinclair, a gentleman 
long resident at Red River, I learned that the 
Anson Northvj) was not the first boat, though 
doubtless the first steamboat on the Red River 
of the North. In the back-ground of the sketch 
of Bishop Anderson's church, there is to be seen 
the roof of a steam mill — the only one on Red 
River. The machinery of this mill, which 
gi-inds wheat and saws logs indiscriminately. 
Mr. Sinclair was commissioned to transport 
from St. Paul to Fort Garry. The perils of the 
land transit may be faintly appreciated by one 
I who has read of what we sufiered in our less dif- 
. ficult undertaking. Probably it would have 



been still more diffi- 
cult to carry such 
heavy loads by the 
plains. This he did 
not attempt to do, but 
camjied at Graliam's 
Point, two miles above 
Fovt Abercronibie, 
and there made a 
rude boat or batteau. 
Noah's ark could not 
have served its ma- 
ker's purpose better. 
Mr. Sinclair's boat : 
was 55 feet long, and ^-m 
I.^ feet wide. Unlike ^ 
Noah, Mr. Sinclair 
had no oakum, ]iitch, 
or tar wherewith to 
calk the seams. This 
seemed to balk his 
hopes, but the diffi- 
culty was overcome 
by using basswood and 
grooving the planks. 
They were so green 
and damp that water 
ran ahead of the 
planer. But not a ■" 
drop ran into the boat 
when they were put to- 
gether, and the cargo 
^all the machinery 
of an engine twenty- 
horse power, was land- 
ed at the settlement 
in safety. Unless the 
name of the Indian 
who first dipped a 

paddle thei"e can be ascertained let this pass as 
the first navigation of Red Kiver. i 

James Sinclair, the brother of the gentleman 
just mentioned, has been likely to lose something 





TUB Kuu:. 



ST. AJ*DREW'a OHCKOU. 

of his proper fame. It is claimed, apparently 
on good authority, that he first discovered the 
pass through the Rocky M( untains, now named 
after Captain Palissior, and went thiough it 
three several times ; 
first, in ] 8-11 with two 
families of emigrants; 
second, in 1848 with 
seven men going to 
California ; and in 
185-t with his own 
_ family, and a num- 

ber of cattle, his in- 
tention bciu;' to start 
a stock farm in Ore- 
gon. In one of his 
journeys, perhaps the 
last, the jiarty which 
he led were compelled 
to leave their carts by 
the roadside on this 
side of the mountains, 
and pack their stuff' 
thrangh. These carts 
were seen by some 
of Captain PalissierV 
men, and indeed used 



to boil their tea witli, and must have signified 
to one who saw them that tlie pass had been dis- 
covered and used. 

Returning toward Fort Garry we passed the 
kirk, which is the phice of worsliip of the old 
Scotch settlers. It was our good fortune to spend 
the night at the house of one of the most intelli- 
gent of these, Mr. Donald Murray, of Frog Plain. 
He had been personally familiar with the progress 
of the settlement from Lord Selkirk's time till 
now, and entertained us till long past midnight 
with his reminiscences. The Scotch settlers, 
who occupy with the English the portion of the 
settlement aronnd Fort Garry, are mostly form- 
ers. They may send hunters to the plains or 
pay for their outfit, but themselves rarely go, ex- 
cept for pleasure. They are by far the most so- 
ber and industrious class of the conimunity, and 
have been the salt which has saved it till now. 
They abide in the old ways. The majority of 
the English residents at the settlement, together 
with many of the more intelligent half-breeds, 
worsliip in the cliurch of which a sketcli has been 
given above (Archdeacon Hnuter's), or in that 
under the care of Bishop Anderson, given below. 
The bishop was absent from the settlement dur- 
ing our visit, and we did not have the pleasure 
of seeing or hearing him. Tlie half-breeds and 
natives are for the most part Catholics, and their 
religious services are held in the large cathedral 
of St. Boniface, opposite Fort Garry. The Right 
Reverend the Bishopof St. Boniface, in the colony 
of Assiniboia, gave us extremely interesting ac- 
counts of the religious and educational establisli- 
ments in his diocese. Bishop Taclie has him- 
self been in the country for fifteen years, and no 
unprejudiced observer can fail to see the fruits of 
his industry and pious zeal. His diocese is ini- 
♦lense, and the care of the missions in the in- 
terior country where it extends, which are alto- 
gether heathen missions, is no small part of his 
self-denying and laborious work. Besides this, 
there is under his cliarge, and constituting the 
more engrossing division of his labor, the min- 
istration and aid afforded to tlie Catholic popu- 
lation of Red River and neigliborhood. A Cana- 
dian like themselves, their brotlier, therefore, and 
their friend, no outward circumstances restrict 
the influence which his character and high office 
enable him to e.xercise. 

There are four parishes in Red River — St. 
Boniface, St. Norbert, St. Francis Xavier, St. 
Charles. St. Boniface includes within its limits 
the central and most populous jiart of the settle- 
ment. JIgr. J. N. Provencher was its first bishop, 
having landed at Fort Douglas about the middle 
of July, 1818. In two years was laid the foun- 
dation of the first religious edifice — a wooden 
clia|iel. The Clmrch of St. Boniface, Bishop 
Tache's cathedral, now replaces it. 

It is, perhaps, the finest, certainly the most 
imposing building in the settlement. It is 100 
feet in length, 45 in breadth, and 40 in height, 
not reckoning the spire. In its two tinned and 
airy towers is a fine and well-matched ])eal of 
three bells, weighing upward of HJUO pounds. 



In the rear of the cathedral, with a lower roof, is 
the dwelling of the bishop. He escorted us, by 
a rear entrance, through his house into the cathe- 
dral, on the occasion of our first visit to him, and 
a more striking surprise could not have been pre- 
jiared for us. "We came out by a door at the 
side of the altar, and there suddenly beheld pil- 
lared aisles, frescoed roof, and all the gorgeous 
jjaraphernalia with which the Mother Church 
solicits and attracts her communicants. To a 
nice taste the eft'ect might have seemed a little 
gaudy, but when we learned that the Sisters of 
Charity and some of the Brothers had accom- 
plished these decorations without aid or pattern, 
the oftense passed ; for piety takes rank above 
taste, or else what excuse have we for the bare 
walls, the stingy paint, to say nothing of the beg- 
garly pinched ceremonial in some abodes of our 
enlightened Protestant worsliip ? Indeed, of a Sun- 
day or a fete day, when the church is thronged ; 
when, after a successful hunt and safe return, the 
lialf-brceds gather to the cathedral in all their 
fanciful variety of dress, their brilliant sashes, 
and blue or white capotes ; the dress of the wo- 
men, too, not less brilliantly catching the eye, 
there is a sense of harmony gratified by this like- 
ness and general prevalence of striking colors, 
wliich would never be elicited by the same throngs 
in a country meeting-house in New England. A 
tablet in the wall commemorates the piety and 
labors of tlie earliest bishop. 

Bishop Tache's house is large, and he shared 
it, as well as his private residence, with his clergy, 
the Brothers of his schools, and some orphans. 
Formerly the boys' school of the Brothers of the 
Christian doctrine was kept in the bishop's house, 
but for a year or two now tlicy have had posses- 
sion of the building erected for them a few hun- 
dred feet north of the catliedral — seen in the 
sketch above. It was here that little Joe Rolette 
was schooled, and as the tuition is very low, and 
in some cases a gift, the school is well filled. 
The scholars are examined semi-annually, and 
we beard the most creditable reports of their pro- 
ficiency in reading, writing, arithmetic, geogra- 
jjby, grammar, history, sacred and secular, alge- 
bra, etc. The sleeping rooms of the little fel- 
lows were bedsteadless, but bedsteads were a lux- 
ury their parents were used to go without, and 
they enjoy their neat piles of blankets on the floor 
quite as well. 

The convent belonging to the Sisters of Char- 
ity, known in Canada as the Gray Nuns, is in the 
foreground of the sketch of the Cathedral of St. 
Bonitace. It is to the south of the cathedral, 
separated from it by a well-cultivated garden, 
tlirough which, when we passeij, some of the Sis- 
ters were at work, assisting and directing the la- 
bors of half a score of boys. 

We were indebted to Bishop Tache for an in- 
troduction to the lady superior of the convent, 
and to her kindness for the opportunity of exam- 
ining all ])arts of it. From garret to cellar it 
was full of interest. Tlie building itself is a 
very spacious one, though still too small for all 
its uses. A large chnpcl was being erected dur- 



ing the summer of our visit, and as the settle- 
ment grows other adJitions will be necessary. 
The amount of work done and of good accom- 
plished bj' Sister Valade and the Gray Nuns un- 
der her direction is something remarkable. The 
current expenses of the convent are defrayed en- 
tirely by the proceeds of tlie labors of the nuns. 
In the garret of the convent we were shown the 
spinning-wheels witli which they spin the mate- 
rial for their plain gray gowns, woven also by 
their own hand. Their fine garden, too, they 
till. The more accomplished among them give 
their leisure to fine embroideries and rich needle- 
work, sold to visitors, or sent to Canada for sale. 
They board twenty or thirty girls, and, for com- 
jiensation, give them an education beyond that of 
most district schools in the United States. The 
languages used are English and French, and the 
subjects principally taught are reading, spelling, 
the catechism, grammar, sacred history, arith- 
metic, geography, English history, Canadian his- 
tory, ancient mythology, vocal mnsic, and the 
piano-forte, as well as tlie doctrines and prac- 
tices of the Catholic religion. Besides keeping 
a day-school for all the little girls of the parish 
desirous of instruction, they maintain and edu- 
cate in a separate ajiartment fifteen or twenty 
|->oor orphan girls, without charge to any one ex- 
cept themselves. Nor is this the sum of their 
labors ; they minister to the sick or afflicted of 
the parish unweariedly, and by their example of 
charity, industry, and economy, have wrought a 
perceptible change in the character of that class 
jf the population over whom their care extends. 

The neatness and order of the convent was 
apparent in every part. The uncarpoted floors 
were not waxed, but not an atom of dust lin- 
gered ujjon them. The kitchen was as neat as 
a New England housewife's after the morning's 
work is done, and when the sun lies on the 
Huor and lights up the polished tins. Even the 
garret, where every thing was stowed, was in an 
orderly litter. 

The lady superior conversed with ns only in 
French, undefiled by the Canadian patois ; but 
one of the nuns, whom no visitor several years 
ago to the Montreal convent has forgotten, and 
whose beauty nor tlie attraction of the world 
lias turned aside from her life of self-denial and 
hidden labor, conversed with us in English, and 
left us without information on no point that we 
desired to know. After a general conversation 
in the large reception-room of the convent, hung 
with portraits of the bishops and of saints, and 
decorated with specimens of the handiwork of 
the nuns, and having also in one of its corners 
a sewing-machine of Wheeler and Wilson's pat- 
ent, this beautiful mm conducted us to the mu- 
sic-room, and there entertained us with polkas, 
redowas, and marches, played by the more ac- 
complished of the pupils. Strange sounds these ; 
to us, flashes of the world, forsaken for nionlhs 
in the midst of its hurry and gayety, its life of 
cities and operas and art and trade and jiarades, 
its ])omp and wealth and show; — to these Gray 
Nuns, dull gleams, perhaps, of an outer world, I 



resigned and forsaken for all the years of their 
lives. 

In other rooms we listened to recitations, 
singing of the older and younger ones, heard 
the quick, bright answers of little half-breeds, 
recognizing the painted block letters which hold 
the knowledge and wisdom of the world ; saw 
them march about the room in lock step, hymn- 
ing nursery rhymes ; listened to the story of one 
poor Indian girl left by her sa\age parents on 
the prairie to starve and die, a rope tied about 
her, cutting into her tender flesh and wearing 
away her life, but saved in her last horns for a 
longer and better life here ; saw and heard 
other things of like tenor and character, too 
numerous to mention in these ciowded pages, 
and left the convent with the benediction of the 
nuns. We, Christians of another name, were 
thankful that, although on another continent, 
he whom they called father we called Anti- 
christ, here, at least, charity and the good 
works of a Christianity inspired elsewhere than 
at Rome, and at sources long forsaken by the 
successors of St. Peter, were making their se- 
cure and noiseless way. 

In the parishes of St. Norbert, St. Francis 
Xavier, and St. Charles, there are also schools 
for boys and girls, nnder the charge of the pas- 
tor and the Sisters of Charity ; in the first 31 
boys .and 20 girls, and in the second 13 boys and 
L'tl girls. The population ministered to in St. 
Boniface parish is 1400; in the other three, the 
first two having each a chapel, a little more than 
2000. At the extremity of Lake Manitoba there 
is still another chapel, for the convenience of 
thirty or forty families. 

Let it be remembered that here there is no 
law and no general jn-ovision for education ; that 
the bouses for the most part are .sparse, that the 
jiarents are careless and indifferent, and that, 
though the charge for education is but ten shil- 
lings a year, scarcely one child in ten pays for 
his schooling, while to insist on payment would 
drive two-thirds away. 

There are seventeen schools in the settlement, 
generally under the supervision of the ministers 
of the denomination to which they belong. The 
parochial school of Archdeacon Hunter, nnder 
the charge of a gentleman from Dublin ; Mr. 
Gunn's commercial boarding-school, whose schol- 
ars are, the most of them, the children of Pres- 
byterians ; the Kev. Messrs. Black, Taylor, and 
Chapman's schools ; and three minor schools, 
under the supervision of the Episcopal ministers 
in difl'erent i>arishes besides those above mention- 
ed, are the most important of tliem. 

The Indian church, at the lower end of the 
settlement, is one of the peculiar features of Red 
River. It is mostly attended by O.iibbeway In- 
dians, whose behavior is attentive and decorous. 
The singing, in which the soft, low voices of the 
Indian women join, led by a melodeon ])layed by 
the wife of the minister, is very sweet. The 
prayers were read in English, the lessons in Ojib- 
beway, and the sermon in Cree. 

Ml'. Cowlev the minister, is not onlv a mis- 




B16U0P A^UEUbUiNj'B OUUBOU. 



sionaiy, but also physician, judpe, arbitrator, 
and adviser of the Indians. Wlien the Indians 
require liis services as doctor during tlie night, 
they quietly enter tlie parsonage door, ■wliicli is 
never locked, make their way in the darkest night 
to the well-known stove-pipe leading from the sit- 
ting-room into his bedroom above, give two or 
three low Indian taps, and quietly await the result. 
Ko one wotdd doubt the value of these mis- 
sions among the Indians who could see the 
contrast between those who have become Chris- 
tianized and otliers who have not. Mr. Daw- 
sen tells of disgusting dog feasts and medicine 
dances held by prairie tribes on a Sunday, while 
he was there, within a mile and a half of their 
Christian altars. The next Sunday after leav- 
ing the settlement we spent at Pembina, and 
there witnessed a begging dance, and heard a 
begging oration from an Indian orator. Not so 
disgusting, to be sure, as a dog feast, but still 
sufficiently in contrast with the Sabbath rest 
which we had enjoyed the week before. 

The po])idation in Mr. Cowley's mission con- 
sists of about 500 baptized Indians and 203 
heathen. 

The relative proportion of these several classes 
is fairly shown in the census list of 18.ti;, where 
the families are numbered as follows, according 
to their origin : 

Rupert's Land, half-breeds and native? Sir, 

Scolland HI! 

Can.-ula 92 

Kngland 40 

Ireland 13 

Switzerland 2 

Norway 1 



The total population of the settlements on tin' 
Red Kiver and the Assiniboine, in that year, 
amounted to 6523. Including those of Pem- 
bina, St. Joseph, and vicinity, and making al- 
lowance for the natural increase since the cen- 
sus was taken, it is probable that the number 
now reaches nearly 8000. There is a very dis- 
tinct and well-preserved difference in faith be- 
tween the population of the different parishes 
into which the settlements arc divided. Some 
are almost exclusively Protestant ; others equal- 
ly Roman Catholic. In the last ten years there 
has been a considerable emigration of young men 
to the States and Canada ; so that while in 1849 
there were 137 more males than females in the 
settlement, there were in 18.")G seventy-three more 
females than males. . 

The census roll of Red River has one curious 
blank in its pages. It has no enumeration of 
trades and occupations. Almost every man is 
his own carpenter, house-builder, wheel-wright, 
blacksmith, and all are either small farmers or 
hunters. Rock, suitable for grindstones, lies 
almost under their feet, but they for years have 
used those imported by the Hudson's Bay Com- 
])any. Their pottery, too, is imjiorted. There 
are about sixteen wind-mills, and half as many 
water-mills. The only steam (saw and grist) 
mill in the valley, which, as before said, stood 
idle wliile a rip-saw was dragged through heavy 
timbers under its very eaves, was burned down 
last Juno, the loss amounting to X1600 ; so end- 
ing another enterprise, with a fatality whicli 
seems to have been common wherever the pco- 




OLD MILL (ONOE IN FOKT DOUGLAB). 






pie of the settlement have attempted to over- 
i^ome the general stagnation. A model farm 
was once attempted there to show the native 
farmers what science applied to agriculture 
could accomplish. Mismanagement jiroduced 
a miserable failure. Tlie exploits of a Buffalo 
Wool Company are only remembered to be pit- 
ied ; the sheep and tallow schemes, and the ag- 
ricultural associations attempted, have likewise 
fallen through ; and a fulling-mill com])letes the 
cast of abortive enterprises. Another steam- 
mill, however, will soon re])lace the old one. 

The supplies of the Red River peojjle were 
formerly imported for them through Hudson's 
Bay, at high charges, by the Company; but 
with the growth of our Western settlements, 
wliich are extended almost to northernmost 
Minnesota, they have been able to obtain them 
directly from the United States, which they vis- 
ited in huge caravans, or through the traders 
who themselves visit St. Paul. The principal 
American traders are Norman W. Kittson, who 
has done more than any one else to open tlie 
trade, and J. W. Burbank and Co., now the 
proprietors in part of the Anso7i Northup. 

These facts, and the immense extent of front- 
ier not easily governed by custom-house regu- 
lations, will account for the large number of 



merchant shops (fifty-six) enumerated in the last 
censns. 

Mr. Kittson's store, whidi has a fine position 
near the cathedral, and ojiposite Fort Garry, is 
very like other Yankee country stores; but in 
those of the minor or native traders the object 
seems to be to conceal rather than display their 
goods. 

Besides the merchants, there is another class, 
called freighters, who row the heavy Mackinaw 
boats, and haul them and their loads over the 
portages between York Factory and Ked River. 
There were fifty-five of these boats enumerated 
in the last census ; on the next they will liave 
become much diminished, from the change in 
the route of importation, although in the sup- 
plying of the northwestern districts some will be 
as indispensable as ever. The employment of 
Indians by the freighters was a matter of special 
prohibition only a few years ago, as introducing 
a kind of industry not compatible with hunting, 
and likely to direct attention from the fur trade. 
The shrewd reader may here see some clew to 
many mysterious facts in the condition of the . 
Red River settlement, and of the Indian mis- 
sions here and elsewhere in Ru])ert's Land. 

The tenure of land in Assiniboia is singular. 
It is sometimes sold to purchasers at 7s. Qd. ster- 



ling per acre, the title beinf; conveyed under the 
form of a lease for 999 years. Tliere are half a 
dozen conditions in the lease saving the inter- 
ests, and profits, and control of the Company, 
which has been generally enforced. The con- 
dition that one-tenth of the land should be 
brought under cultivation in five years is ob- 
served or not, as may happen. In very many 
instances among the half-breed settlers, they did 
not know the number of their lots, the ground 
of their tenure, and had no document from the 
Company or any other authority. Some had 
paid, some had received land for services, some 
had squatted and were never disturbed, others 
had received it as a present from Sir George 
Simpson ; and now, beyond the limits of the 
settlement on the river, no new squatter has 
any thing to pay. 

The northward deflection of isothermals as 
you pass west of the gi'eat lakes, and toward 
the west coast of the continent, is a fact well 
known. Red River nobody supposes to be as 
cold as Labrador. It finds its parallel in the 
climates of the interior districts of Northern 
Europe and Asia. The summer temperature is 
high ; the winter cold and severe. There is a 
plenty of rain in the summer months, a general 
absence of late spring and early autumn frosts. 
Professor Hind found, in 18.55-'56, the summer 
of Red River four degrees warmer than that of 
Toronto, with 21-74 inches of rain in favor of 
. Red River. 

The natural division of the seasons for the 
climate of Red River is as follows : 



Summer. — June, July, and August. 

Autumn. — September and October. 

Winter. — November, December, January. 
February, and March. 

Sfirimj. — April and May. 

The summer temperature and the absence 
of frosts determine its fitness for agricultural 
purposes, and the splendid crops are the proof 
thereof. 

The clear, dry atmosphere renders innocuous 
the very cold weather of winter, The half- 
breeds camp out on the plains, with only a few 
blankets and robes. Indian com is a sure croji 
on the dry points of the Assiniboine and Red 
River, the horse-teeth and Mandan com being 
the kinds most cultivated. 

"Wheat is the staple crop in the settlement. 
Forty bushels to the acre is a common return on 
new land, and in some cases the yield has been 
between fifty and sixty bushels. The grasshop- 
pers, which have several times eaten up cverj- 
green thing, are its only enemies. 

Of bay the quantity is unlimited, and the 
quality excellent. Hops grow every where wild, 
and with the greatest luxuriance. Pease grow 
wild, and the yield is large. Potatoes are sur- 
passed in size and quality by none that we arc 
accustomed to find in Washington Market. 

All kinds of root-crops grow well, and attain 
large dimensions ; and all the garden vegetable'- 
which grow well in Canada and Northern New 
York flourish better in Assiniboine. 

Flax, hemp, and tobacco are cultivated to 
some extent, the want of a market alone pre- 




VIKW NEAR iOKt OARKV. 




Js^ A 



\ V 






■'^=*'«K, 






OTTKR TAIT. TO (IROW WINO. 




venting the first two from becoming most valu- 
able cx|iorts. 

Melons are cultivated in some of the gardens 
of tlic settlement with wonderful suceess ; and 
the kitcJien gardens of the Koyal Canadian l!i- 
fles at Fort Garry, and of the Sisters of Charity 
over the river, would deserve prizes at an Illi- 
nois State Fair. 

The limitless prairies environing the settle- 
ment are fragrant with the perfume of a thou- 
sand (lowers ; and in the thickets and long grass 
arc strawberries, raspberries, sakatome berries, 
. gooseberries, and prunes. 

After remaining a week or more in the settle- 
ment, the changing of the weather, which was 
now beginning to have something of the chilli- 
ness of antumn, and the departure of the last 
trains of the half-breeds, made us think more in- 
tently of returning. One mild September after- 
noon, therefore, having first crossed the Stygian 
ferry, whereof the Charcm is no Yankee, and 
bade adieu to friends at the fort, and to the 
bishop, and to Kittson and Cavalier, border-set- 
tlers who have begun to save the province from 
itself, and have also rescued Joe Uoletto from 
his enemies, wo 'en.tnded ourselves to the life 



which we had left, and them all to their annu- 
al hibernation. We reached John Dace's by 
nightfall, and, the house being full, sjircad our 
blankets on the floor of his kee]iing-r(iom, and 
slejit till morning. The next day Josejih and I 
bestrode our'horses, turned their heads south- 
ward, and with a smart gallop soon left the 
last house of the settlement bidden behind the 
billowy prairie grass, as the rounding waves 
iiide the ships at sea. Before its chimney-pot 
had gone down, however, Joseph turned on the 
river bank, rose in his stirrups, and apostro- 
phized the settlement in a manner which, as 1 
stood and listened, brought tears to my eyes and 
a hanilkercbief to my nose. If the thermometer 
had been firther from 32° Fahrenheit not even 
the orator would have suspected the sincerity of 
my emotion. That day we traveled fifty-four 
miles, reaching I'embina after dark, exhausted, 
and feeling as if bifurcation had attained its 
maximum. The next day Joe Rolette came; 
he, too, certain, for twenly-four hours after di* 
mounting, that the earth had ceased to rotate, 
but performed its journey around the sun with 
hard trotting on a macad.ami/,cd orbit. 

At Pembina we made our final preparations 



for a solita.y journey across t!ic country to Crow 
Wing, on oni; of the iijjiier tributaries of tlie Mis- 
sissippi, liearing tlie same name. TliePeniljina 
postmaster — for even liere the American Bri- 
areus extends one of his finger tips, and sorts 
the mails — concluded to accompany us, and by 
waiting for him benevolently a day, we were re- 
warded by a month's later mails, wliich came 
pi^ in tima not to be too late, with letters from 
lionie and friends, and news of the world with- 
out, whoso attractive force, in sjjito of Kejiler 
and Faraday, was in the ratio of the square of 
the distance. 

One busy Jlonday morning, on the 10th of 
September, after a rainy Sunday, we ferried our- 
selves over the Red River of the North, swim- 
ming the horses, dragged our cart up its steep 
and muddy bank, and soon left the waters 
gleaming red in every wave under the bright 
sunshine, as it swept on to tlie frozen seas, far 
behind us. 

The cart was light, the lioi-ses pretty well 
rested, and the law of the inverse ratio began to 
operate, so tliat a dog-trot became even Dan 
Rice's habitual gait. Twenty-five miles were 
put behind us the first day, and we came to 
camp by twilight on the wooded banks of a beau- 
tiful river. Roumling its curve we came in sight 
of a camp-fire, around which were huddled three 
Red Lake Indians — a fiither and his two sons. 
We fraternized directly, amazing them witli a 
prodigal gift of tea, and saved the trouble of 
cooking our supper by being invited to share 
their huge kettle of boiled ducks. As far as we 
could learn they had supped twice already, but 
this did not prevent them from eating a third 
time. The old man, in the abundance of his 
hospitality, even tore strips from the sheet of 
white bark, whicli was all tlieir shelter from the 
wind, to make torclies for us, twisting tlie stri]) 
iuto a roll, impaling it diagonally on a stick 
thrust in the ground, and ligliting its upper end. 
The engorgement of the red-skins convinced us 
of their honesty for the night, and we all slept 
with both eyes shut ; and when we waked in the 
morning and found two of our four horses gone, 
we accused only the quadrupeds of theft. We 
scoured the woods and the ])rairies in vain, and 
finally set the Indians on the hunt, ourselves 
watching by the camp. The red leaves of au- 
tumn, like flakes of blood, drifted down from the 
branches of the trees, and floated away on the 
1 surface of the stream. The soft whirr of the 
wings of ducks alighting or flying was a foil to 
the, solemn stillness in whicli the ungathercd 
harvests fell before the silent sickle of the wind, 
and the pomp and summer glory of the year 
made ready for its winter shroud. 

Before night one of the horses bad been found, 
►and the next afternoon an Indian messenger re- 
turned with.another from Pembina in lieu of the 
one lost. We loaded our carts and traveled on 
for a few miles, camping beside a huge marsh. 
Two or three hours before daylight the post- 
master awoke by chance, and aroused us with 
the cry of ' ' Prairie on fire ! " At the west of us 



the wliole sky was lit up with lurid fire. Great 
surging billows of smoke swelled u]) against the 
black, starless sky, their under sides reddened all 
over with the reflection from the flames below. 
The wind was blowirjg almost directly upon us, 
and we could feel the gusts of hot wind every 
moment alternating with the cool night breeze. 
It was easy to see that the fire was gaining upon 
us rapidly. While we stood gazing the swift 
flames had come so fast and far that we could 
already see their fiery tips flickering above the 
green grass, a long advancing line stretching far 
away to the northward. Every moment the de- 
vouring lips came nearer, and lifted themselves 
higher, and the huge molten billows swept on 
toward us in vast volume and solid jihalanx, as 
if to ingulf us and plunge us in the conflagra- 
tion below. There was no time to be lost. We 
found the horses, that were all standing fas- 
cinated by the glare, and beginning to tremble 
with c.Kcitemcnt and fright, harnessed and sad- 
dled them, turned their heads to the south, 
obliquely away from the direction of the wind, 
and at the end of an hour's fast riding were past 
the limit of its southernmost line. 

Red Lake River is the largest of the tributaries 
of Red River, excepting only the Assiniboine. 
Indeed it bears the same relation to the Red River 
above its mouth as the Missouri to tlie Upper Mis- 
sissippi. It is itself the main stream. AVe came 
to its banks one afternoon, at the sjjot figured in 
the sketch below, dined, and then attempted the 
passage. The water was high, and the river 
wide. By wading it on horseback we soon found 
the easiest s]iot to cross. It was necessary to 
enter the stream from a projecting spit of land, 
make head against its current for a few rods, 
then turn where the deep channel was narrow- 
est, wade through it, and keep on a long, shal- 
low bar to the ojjposite shore. The force of the 
current in the deepest part was more than any 
but a strong man could stand -against, and even 
over the shallow bar, to wade, was like forcing 
one's legs through dry sand. 

We emptied the cart, laid bars on the top, 
piled our goods and chattels upon them, weight- 
ing the upper side so that the current might not 
tij) the cart over, and, one of ns standing upon 
the same side, with Dan Riee harnessed between 
tlie shafts, we entered the water. With coax- 
ing and tluasliing and shoving, Dan was induced 
to jnill the cart up stream as far as the turning 
jioint, where we were to cross the deep channel. 
Feeling the force of the water against his legs, 
sideways, here, and anxious probably for bis 
equine equilibrium, not another step would he 
budge, though we besought, and pulled, and so- 
licited, and shoved, and thrashed, and dragged 
him, as we three best could, on horseback or up 
to armpit in the cold water. It was of no use ; 
Dan could not or would not go on : there was 
nothing left, therefore, but to drive him back, 
and try one of the other horses. But return was 
as bad as to go o'er. The obstinate brute would 
move in no direction, and for aught we could 
see seemed willing to stand in his tracks till tlie 




POEDINO BEI> L\Kr P.I\-EE. 



waters had washed liim, fiiecemcal, from off llic 
face of the earth. We all then jnmped into tlic 
water, unharnessed the balky WTCtcli, backed 
the cart down the stream to the shore, and led 
Dan out. The other horses failed from sheer 
weakness. Each did his best, but got no further 
than Dan had tried to go. Indeed a little black 
horse came nearer drowning than swimming. The 
current knocked out his legs from under him, and 
had not Joseph lifted his nose above water by 
jumping on the hinder end of the cart, we should 
hare had four legs the less to get home with. 

The afternoon was already more than half 
gone ; the horses too tired to be ridden back and 
forth through the water any longer with safety ; 
and Joseph, not in good health, had already ex- 



ceeded prudence ; so it only remained for the 
postmaster and myself to shoulder our bags and 
boxes and ferry them over bipedally. Superflu- 
ities had no chance of transportation — that tcr- 
rible strain upon the muscles could be endured 
onlv for what was necessary to take us to civiliz- 
ation again, bo that it was only for guns, pem- 
mican, blankets, and frying-pans, and not at all 
for dressing-cases, stecl-p^n coats, and French 
rairrors that we terebratcd the stony bottom of 
the river with our great toes and blistered the 
soles of our feet. Last of all we took the cart to 
pieces, and with a long rope, of which we both 
had hold, floated over successively the box and 
wheels. One feathcr's-wcight more must have 
swept OS down the river. 




OTTEB TACL OiTY. 



In two or three clays more of rapid travel, 
crossing Sand Hill, Rice, and Butfalo rivers, we 
reached the Leaf Mountains, seen at the north 
of us when we were near Osakis Lake, left two 
more of our horses exhausted on the way ; and 
at the end of another day's journey came to De- 
troit Lake, a fine sheet of water, skirted by a 
noble forest. The trail led us for twelve miles 
through its delightful shade. We loaded our 
cart with pigeons and ])artridges, shot en passmil, 
discarding here the last of our pemmican, and the 
next noon dined at Otter Tail City, the whole of 
which is seen in the cut above. Six miles fur- 
ther on we came to Leaf City (houses one, popu- 
lation one), slept within four walls, rested a day 
while the rain poured, and on the 1st day of Oc- 
tober, through sloughs innumerable and fathom- 
less, came to the Crow Wing crossing— a rope 
ferry over the river of the name — from which 
there was continuous water, not to Arctic, but 
to Tropic seas and the Atlantic. 

One more day's journey brought us to the 
"Agency," where two or three thousand Chip- 
pewa Indians were assembled to receive their 
annual payment ; and to Crow Wing, a thriving 
village on the Mississippi, just below the junc- 
tion of the Crow Wing River, whence stages, 
steamboats, and railway cars, soon carried us to 
1 our respective homes. 

I have just space to append a few statistical 
items : Four years ago the Red River Settlement 
contained 

Houses 933 Churches 9 

Stablea 1232 Shop?, etoro9, etc 56 

Baina 399 Schools IT 

— making 2G35 buildings in all. 

The live stock is as follows : 

Horses 1503 Cows 3693 

Stares 1396 Calves 

Oxen 272B Pigs 

Bulls 290 Sheep 

Of these there were lost, during the winter of 
18u3-'o6, 16 horses, 3 mares, 21 o.xen, 16 cows, 
43 sheep, 57 calves, 2S pigs. 

The implements of the settlers curiously indi- 
cate their habits : 



Plows SSBCanoes 522 

llaiTows 730 Boats 6S 

Carts 2075; 

There are nearly 1G,000 acres of land under 
cultivation. 

The machinery in use in the settlement is 
very little, and mostly turned by natural forces. 

"Wind-mills 16 Cnrding-mills 1 

Wnter-mill'i DlThrashing-milla 8 

Winuowiug-macliiues . . . 6, Reaping-machines 2 

The average value of dwellings, linstock, im- 
plements, and machinery, is reckoned as fol- 
lows : 

nwellings :£49,260 

Linstock 53,401 

Implements 5998 

Machinery 337T 

Total Hlirosij 

The grand total value of all that is above the 
soil of Red River then remaining at a little over 
half a million dollars, exclusive of the Com- 
pany's forts and provisions. 



2644 
4674 
2429 




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